career-advice

[vital wyvern]

Malware Analysis/Reverse Engineering.

[harsh river]

cybersecurity is an niche in and of itself

[vital wyvern]

Yeah, it's a subspecialty of the broader IT and system administration field.

[smoky quest]

no. It's a whole field with a wide array of different roles

[harsh river]

niche
[niːʃ, nɪtʃ]
a specialized segment of the market for a particular kind of product or service
i believe cybersecurity fits this criteria

[hardy bison]

Thankyou

[vital wyvern]

I mean-- It's definitely a subdiscipline of Information Technology. In fact it's the generally accepted venue into Cybersecurity. Having worked in a SysAdmin or IT role tends to be effective experience in the career advice discussions that I tune into in regards to Cybersecurity.

[hardy bison]

Still ongoing, didn't fail a year

Thankyou

[harsh river]

i will say, in order to do that they often expect you to have your healthcare degrees, maybe you can get your degrees and then look into the programming fields, if that would be worth it for you, i would do it honestly

[vital wyvern]

https://www.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/comments/15b64sp/the_biggest_lie_told_is_that_you_can_start_a/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/comments/15m0qq3/as_someone_who_didnt_start_in_it_yall_gotta_start/
https://www.reddit.com/r/cybersecurity/comments/15p0yyv/a_response_to_the_deluge_of_entering_the_field/
Here's 3 recent Reddit posts about this subject.

[smoky quest]

This is so generic as a definition that anything could fit in that definition.
For the purpose of discussions in terms job careers, niche would imply something very narrow, which cybersecurity isn't

[vital wyvern]

So, let’s get the bad news out of the way first! You’ve probably heard this before, but the reality is that, with a few specific exceptions, cyber security really isn’t an entry-level field. When I hire candidates for security roles, I expect to see a not-insignificant amount of IT experience first. There are a few reasons for this.

Become a sys admin, help maintain a few enterprise environments, find your interest whether that’s cloud, virtualization, containers, app dev, traditional on prem infrastructure, and dive into it with a security focus.

Getting into cybersecurity without a fundamental understanding of networking and basic IT functions is like trying to drive a car blind without a steering wheel.

Some snippets of the above.

[gilded valley]

a niche is mssql rdbms administration, a niche is SPARQL ontology design, a niche is post-quantum cryptographic algorithm research - cyber security is definitely not a niche

[fringe sphinx]

Interesting, never really thought about it much. My first job was primarily networking & system administration. I had strong unix skills from college, and that's where they stick the new grads. It served me well. I spent the next 20 years with one foot in the data center.

(not a cybersecurity guy, but I take those fundamentals for granted)

[vital wyvern]

I'm hoping my degree helps assuage that experience requirement a bit and I don't have to... slide into an IT role first.

[smoky quest]

I wouldn't really subscribe to that. Obviously any experience will give some color and context but:

• Companies still hire new grads in cybersecurity
• I don't need to be an accountant to write software about accounting. I don't need to murder someone to become a police inspector. Similarly, I don't need ti have experience in IT to be in one of the many cybersecurity roles

[vital wyvern]

I contest the second statement in the second bullet on principle.

I don't think it's prescriptive-- that is to say, I don't think you're screwed without that background, but I do think it's overwhelmingly effective advice.

[fringe sphinx]

I've been trying to formulate a thought for a while (weeks) on this, that broad foundational skills is a specialty. Lots of folks come in here asking about a narrow specialization very early in their path.

[delicate bane]

not sure if this helps since its anecdata, but ive seen both new grads being hired directly to cybersec roles + those spending time in "IT roles" before moving onto cybersec. however, the new grads are uber competitive, and i usually see more of the latter on the whole.

[fringe sphinx]

wait, do we have two lattes?

[delicate bane]

yes i am the second one

charlie is the first

[harsh river]

new grads have more energy to be competitive i'd say, whereas the experienced ones don't have anything to prove because the experience and track records talk for themselves

[delicate bane]

sorry by uber competitive i mean they stand out from their peers (other new grads). they rank top in those cybersecurity whatchamacallit competitions, they have a few internships under their belt, etc.

all anecdata. take with a grain of salt.

[smoky quest]

There is also a question of empathy. Especially if you are in charge of the security for a product and have to influence teams without getting them mad at you.
Having been in the shoes of the receiving end, be it network/IT or a software engineer, can help understand them better in terms of how they may see things and prioritize.

But yeah, in terms of skills, that's also why a CS degree is the path of least resistance. It does cover a broad foundation

[deft pelican]

This is perhaps not a career topic, but work related. I'm gonna be the "buddy" for a new hire at my office. And I want to prepare some good intro tasks for them. The hire is fresh from university.

Do you have any thoughts or tips? It would be nice to hear some from others who recently started a new job.

[buoyant seal]

Don't u have jira board with backlog of tasks u never do, because they are too easy and have low priority? 🙂

[smoky quest]

• Do you have a doc about where are things? How to build things? How to test things?
• Let them know they can reach out to you for anything
• Setup some 30min syncs. Set them up frequently the first few weeks and can relax that later
• Set up guidance in when to reach out to you so they don't spend 2 days debugging something
• Encourage exploration
• Add them to the relevant slack/channels/mailing-list
• Add them to the relevant teams/repos
• Add them to the relevant meeting
• Re-explain to them the different roles in the team (manager should cover that). What is a manager for? team lead for? onboarding for?
• It may be good to review some of the social behaviors. I assume it's because of covid, but recent new grads have had worse social skills
• Check they are setup with HR/health/finance stuff

[cold grove]

How useful is the pcap certification?

[true harness]

not

[pliant bobcat]

Hi does this playlist have enough knowledge to join kaggle competitions? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdRhtbMrWYg&list=PLjy4p-07OYzulelvJ5KVaT2pDlxivl_BN

[true harness]

wrong channel?

[buoyant seal]

ops. indeed.

[gritty rivet]

AFAIK Kaggle competitions have no requirements to join.

[vapid jay]

I appreciated reading this message. Thoughtful, kind and useful.

[raw jasper]

Test

[harsh river]

selfbot?

[undone lantern]

hi

[vapid jay]

Hello i am looking for a developer that can develop our website , the frontend is alredy done we need only backend. Our budget is 700$ for only backend and we need a developer that cab start working day or tomorrow plus if you want to do this job be serious about it. Dm me

[smoky quest]

Hi,
This channel is not for recruitment

[pliant bobcat]

Thanks :D

What legit roadmap should I follow for landing a machine learning engineer entry position?

[buoyant seal]

#career-advice message He knows 😅

[fringe sphinx]

At least their budget is going up.

[frozen nexus]

True😂

[gilded valley]

for that price I can offer you python -m http.server

[fringe sphinx]

Hey, I'll see that and raise you an ngrok.

[vapid jay]

I will be doing bc in computer engineering and iot soon is there related free certificates that can help in my cv to make a difference(basically anything it related ) ? Or is there anything that can help me improve my skills My coding skills are intermediate But i suck at iot and electronics
If you have any advice or links or you're an expert please any note i will appreciate that

[gritty rivet]

Certificates are worthless.in these areas. Read books and build stuff, whatever interests you. I know nothing about IoT/electronics so I won't make specific recommendations

[fringe sphinx]

To level up your programming skills: code code code - the only way to get better is with practice (see kindling for project ideas). Hang out in #python-discussion and try to answer questions in #1035199133436354600 . Watch conference videos for new ideas, such as from EuroPython.

[vapid jay]

Thanks alot of poeple said to me that certificates are useless , so your approach is books i will try to get some

[vapid jay]

thanks for the suggestions and the links are very helpful i will check them out

[jaunty sundial]

I'm getting fired 😐

Haven't really been on a job hunt since 2018-ish so this should be fun

[vapid jay]

enjoy the moment haha

[pliant bobcat]

After finishing Andrew NG's specialization course on deep learning . What do you guys recommend to do to land an entry ML job next?

[pine sleet]

What is your educational background? Do you have a masters/PhD degree already?

[pliant bobcat]

I just graduated from Uni and have a bachelor on CS

[gilded valley]

what country are you in?

[pliant bobcat]

Egypt ... I feel very restricted here

[prisma canyon]

anyone real good with chem here

[undone lantern]

@near ocean #ot0-psvm’s-eternal-disapproval message

[near ocean]

high school was 9 years ago and I dont do DMs

[smoky quest]

What's stopping you from applying to ML jobs?

[hearty basin]

hi i learnd the python but what should i do right now(I just learnd python not lib, datastructers and algoritihms

i dont know about what should i do like data science or machine learning for earn money

[gritty rivet]

The best answer depends on everything we don't know like 1) your interests/knowledge/experience and 2) your local job market. If you don't have an advanced degree, the expectation to quickly earn money in either of those fields is probably not realistic.

[hearty basin]

i dot like about web programming and i like ai but where can i learn

[gritty rivet]

If you're serious about working with AI professionally you should get a relevant degree. If you just want to learn stuff, use whatever tutorial, books or videos look interesting to you

[hearty basin]

I am 14 and irealy want this

[pine sleet]

At university

[sturdy pilot]

14? If there’s no need for you to earn money at this point, learning and not worrying about getting a job would get you a long way and make things easy for you (not stressing about getting a job).

[pine sleet]

Well, like mentioned you will probably need a more advanced degree

[hearty basin]

just kidding

I want programming with python

[small ermine]

I mean to work with a big company you might need to go to Uni but there’s so many free resources with proper dedication and creating a solid resume of skills you can make it without it…

[hearty basin]

ok but what shold i do right know

[pine sleet]

Explore! You have a lot of time

Try different things, see what you like, improve your skills
You can also contribute to open source, build projects, all of which can go on your resume when the time comes to make one

[sleek egret]

but every day that passes is a day you will never see again!

[hearty basin]

ahh i mean i love coding not for money i hate computar game

[sleek egret]

carpe diem, baby!

[hearty basin]

your right

[small ermine]

Also this isn’t related to python, but learning how to be more articulate will work wonders later on. Especially in an interview scenario

[pine sleet]

indeed, soft skills are also very important

[sturdy pilot]

Hey, I’m also a teen. Having a programming job now would be cool, but I don’t really need it. So I’m just constantly learning new technologies and building projects.

[hearty basin]

like what

[hearty basin]

robin can i message in dm

[sleek egret]

I delivered pizzas as a teen. it was fun. i got offered sex for pizza. got chased by thugs. got stiffed by asshats. got free pizza. etc, etc

[hearty basin]

look fun

[pine sleet]

sounds like a grand ol time

[vapid jay]

Certificates are useless? An interesting take. Then what is useful?

[deft pelican]

Great list, I think most of this will be taken care for without my intervention, but it's always good to ask. 🙂

Syncing will probably rather be too often than too seldom, we will sit back-to-back in our team room 😛

[sleek egret]

it was. except that one time I thought some guys were gonna beat me up for pizza

[pine sleet]

I would prefer that we talked here

[sleek egret]

university degree, work experience and actual skills

[smoky quest]

Good thing you asked: a cs degree is the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation

[hearty basin]

i think so

what about data structers and algorithims

[vapid jay]

They said projects

[vapid jay]

Because one can get a certificate without actual skills?

[hearty basin]

for me

[vapid jay]

It's hard to write a meaningful project though.. example of one?

[sleek egret]

no idea. but I do know that the vast majority of employers don't care about programming-related certs

[sturdy pilot]

I’ve learnt fullstack, couple languages, and version control. Lot more I have to learn

[vapid jay]

Use your imagination if you fail to get an idea maybe there's something wrong with you or maybe you're not the one to do this kind of thing

[hearty basin]

compepetive programming*

[sleek egret]

no

[smoky quest]

Yes.
Note also it's not fair to compare a certificate that takes a few weeks with a degree that takes a few years with professors at the top of their research, internships and projects

[hearty basin]

its fun

[vapid jay]

Well it has to be something people like. I have plenty of imagination: Pokemon card shuffler and desk management software.

[sleek egret]

by "meaningful" we mean projects that are of at least moderate complexity. i.e. bigger. iow, something that takes at least a few weeks (if not months) to complete

[vapid jay]

Then instead of talking just do it

[vapid jay]

But they still ask you to code Fizz Buzz when you hold a CS diploma in your hand and wave it at them

[sleek egret]

that's because people lie

[smoky quest]

that's just the filtering part. What about it?

[vapid jay]

But why do something that might not be useful for.. career (topic)

[vapid jay]

A CS diploma should guarantee "can do Fizz Buzz" no?

[vapid jay]

Anything is useful

[sleek egret]

which part of "people lie" confuses you?

[vapid jay]

Is it though? I do deck management of Pokemon cards.... (care? not care? I think no care)

[vapid jay]

The fact that I said "holding diploma rolled up in hand and use it as baton"

[true harness]

people also cheat

[vapid jay]

Magic Diploma wand open sesame door into job for me!
No. Code Fizz Buzz.

[sleek egret]

your questions speak well of your honesty

[vapid jay]

Excuse me?

[deft pelican]

Definitely not a problem, I also am a desert when it comes to personal projects.

[sleek egret]

that you cannot easilly imagine the various ways people lie and cheat is a good indicator that you don't do those things

[vapid jay]

Thanks. I do not, no.

[fringe sphinx]

CS graduates come in many forms. Some are not ready to hit the ground running. In small tech, I don’t want to hire those. Hence, fizz buzz. Would you buy a car without driving it first?

[pastel thunder]

Didnt get response in previous post, If it fine to write some internship like this? I dont have much space on my resume

[sleek egret]

some just lie

[vapid jay]

Would not buy car

[vapid jay]

Lie on CV = crime?

[deft pelican]

I had no personal projects and did no mockup coding when I got my current work.

[gaunt nexus]

quick question. how many hours should i invest per day into learning python? i want to be proficient within 4-5 months

[vapid jay]

Or just lie = bad karma

[sleek egret]

your internships are more important than your coursework

[vapid jay]

at least 8

[pine sleet]

No

[gaunt nexus]

8 hours?!

[fringe sphinx]

For cs grads, I think you can graduate but still not be ready. No lie involved. But more generally, https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

[vapid jay]

depends country

[pine sleet]

If the employer knows you lied on your resume/CV that's pretty much it for that job

[sleek egret]

I guess technically it's fraud, which could, theoretically, be a crime in a few circumstances. but generally speaking, no, it's not a crime to lie.

[vapid jay]

summary please.. why can they not program?

[fringe sphinx]

No. Not at all. Just be balanced, there’s no strict number.

[sleek egret]

assuming they actually graduated, because they cheated their way through school

[vapid jay]

I say at least.. work would be 8 hours a day anyway..

[fringe sphinx]

See link. I’m stating my and other peoples observations, I don’t worry about why.

[vapid jay]

It's a failure of the school to check though.. no?

[sleek egret]

assuming just 5 days a week, that's not exactly a lot

[vapid jay]

But if programmers can't code (job = no guarantee) and CS grads can't code (diploma in hand = no guarantee) then... what?

[deft pelican]

Sure looks reasonable 👍
You could also delete some or just say "various internships".

[gaunt nexus]

that’s gonna be hard for me to do because i’m a full time university student

[sleek egret]

in real life, there are no guarantees.

[vapid jay]

solve live coding puzzle? sort an array without using sort

[pine sleet]

Also FizzBuzz can be solved in many different ways and how a candidate goes about solving them might tell you a little about them and how they think

[gaunt nexus]

hmm if i did an hour a day, how long would it take me approximately?

[vapid jay]

maths

[sleek egret]

how long would it take to what?

[fringe sphinx]

Take it at your own pace. It takes time to get good. If you can put in 30-60 minutes a day, and write a little code every day, and sometimes longer when you’re on a roll, you’ll get through the basics.

[gaunt nexus]

to be proficient at python

[vapid jay]

years? (my opinion)

[sleek egret]

depends on what you mean by "proficient". so anything from a few months to a few decades

[true harness]

10000 days

[pine sleet]

Almost impossible to tell

[gaunt nexus]

hmm

[sleek egret]

programming is not something you know or don't know. it's a skill. so there are infinite gradations and variations.

[deft pelican]

Isn't it hours? 😂

[true harness]

well they said an hour a day

[fringe sphinx]

I think that’s perfectly fine and a good idea.

[gaunt nexus]

ok thanks guys

[deft pelican]

Oh, I didn't add 1 and 1.

[sleek egret]

think of it like learning how to play and write music. to get "good" takes a combination of theory and practice. lots and lots of practice.

[gaunt nexus]

yeah true

[deft pelican]

Is your uni studies related to programming?

[fringe sphinx]

Of course depends on what level you’re aiming for, I guess.

[sleek egret]

you should aim for best possible

[gaunt nexus]

yes

[vapid jay]

what this mean. linus torvalds?

[gaunt nexus]

i’m an IT major

[smoky quest]

That would incentivize people stuffing and lying their resume and result in a less meritocratic approach

[sleek egret]

question: do you think after 10 years of experience you'll be the same skill level as after 5 years? what about after 20 years?

[vapid jay]

beat linus at linux. be best

[sleek egret]

tattoo this on your forehead: "I can always be better"

[vapid jay]

why aren't degrees checked vs a db

[fringe sphinx]

Backwards though, so you can read it in mirror

[deft pelican]

I became really good at python in a year of working. But I have improves at lot since then. And I have never used the libraries that everyone is talking about (no pandas, no numpy, no machine learning,...)

[sleek egret]

because that's not how america works. it might be in some nations.

[vapid jay]

i don't want crazy advice please

[smoky quest]

because it's cheaper to ask fizzbuzz

[sleek egret]

I'm 100% serious

[vapid jay]

cheaper for whom

[true harness]

and even if it was, you can still cheat. you'd have to verify technical skills anyway

[sleek egret]

(not the tattoo part, the always be better part)

[sleek egret]

cheaper for the employer

[deft pelican]

Well thennyou can grasp python quickly. Just make sure to read about the details and understand things. Remember: there is no magic!

[true harness]

except the magic methods

[vapid jay]

how do they check at low cost ?

[deft pelican]

Blasphemy

[sleek egret]

and practice. trying to learn how to program without practice is like thinking you can learn how to play guitar by reading a book.

[smoky quest]

the company

[fringe sphinx]

I’m not sure what you’re frustrated with. Companies that hire people will hire the best available candidates. They will filter the candidates and choose those that best meet their needs. A degree is necessary but not sufficient for many companies, especially in this job climate.

[sleek egret]

with tests like fizzbuzz

[deft pelican]

@ruff i learnt html from a book. Reading is good

[vapid jay]

no i mean for real.. how do they check that you can fizz buzz. it's a real q

[smoky quest]

yeah. That would imply you rely and trust on a 3rd-party to ensure these skills and that their assessment is valid and cannot be cheated on.

[vapid jay]

a robot asks?

[fringe sphinx]

We ask coding questions, sometimes online but always at least one or more in person.

[deft pelican]

You explain the algorithm, or write code, ig

[vapid jay]

who is we

[sleek egret]

our company gives a simple filter test of 5 questions. they start very easy and get middling difficult. people that do well usually finish in 30 minutes. people that do poorly typically take the full 2 hour time limit.

[fringe sphinx]

I’m talking about my company.

[vapid jay]

let me try these 5 q

[sleek egret]

the test is auto-graded and then the better scores are checked manually

sadly, we've caught multiple students cheating (poorly).

[true harness]

it is possible, at least somewhat, with large standardized tests like the SAT or MCAT, which isn't part of the specific university that uses those results. I think it might be interesting to explore that sort of thing

[vapid jay]

i think sat is good, no?

[fringe sphinx]

I think most people agree that: you should be able to do any leetcode easy, without cheating.

(I am anti leetcode grinding but easy’s should be easy)

[vapid jay]

ok.... no help from chatgpt?

[sleek egret]

only the last question even approaches leetcode easy difficulty

[pastel thunder]

Noted, thanks for the advice

[vapid jay]

what are questions?

[sleek egret]

they change over time

[fringe sphinx]

I used to ask people to do a BFS. I loved it because nearly everyone forgot how to do it.

[deft pelican]

We tried a vscode chatgpt plugin today at work on my team's learning session. It was kinda awful, It was fun 😂

[vapid jay]

you enjoyed that they forgot?

[smoky quest]

Yeah. Then it creates a different set of incentives for the candidates and the people who manage such exams.
Plus what happens if you come from a country that do not have such exam or not a strict equivalent?

[deft pelican]

What's a bfs? Oh breadth first search

[vapid jay]

in real life youcan ask chatgpt. you should be able to ask during live coding test

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, the purpose was. See how someone works through a problem that isn’t inherently hard, but requires a little help (hint) from interviewer

[smoky quest]

you shouldn't need help for leetcode questions

[vapid jay]

you can solve any leetcode question?

[deft pelican]

The HR office in Taiwan sends out learning material that promotes "technical breath"

[sleek egret]

first (easiest) question was:

Write a function to split a delimited input string into component parts and return the parts as a dict where the keys are the supplied names.

• The names of the parts (i.e. keys of the returned dict) are supplied as an input list in the order they appear in the input string.
• If a named part is missing, return None for that part.
• Extra parts in the src string should be ignored.

[vapid jay]

what's your profile link on lc?

[fringe sphinx]

Lol. No. I wouldn’t hire someone who needs gpt to solve an easy (that said, I’m fine with forgetting syntax)

[deft pelican]

They asked for people to provide logos ... 😅

[sleek egret]

additionally, inputs and outputs are described and examples of inputs and outputs are provided

[smoky quest]

For interviews, you should expect medium and some hard leetcode questions and be able to solve it without help

[vapid jay]

def split_and_create_dict(input_string, delimiter, names):
    components = input_string.split(delimiter)
    result_dict = {}
    
    for i, name in enumerate(names):
        if i < len(components):
            result_dict[name] = components[i]
        else:
            result_dict[name] = None
    
    return result_dict

maybe with a little help from chatgpt 🙂 not all though. some.

[sleek egret]

see? easy peasy

[deft pelican]

If you can't solve "any" programming task, how are you going to work as a programmer?

[vapid jay]

damn. 😦

[fringe sphinx]

I don’t think I’d ask a hard question, but I do try to ask a question they can’t answer to see how they think.

[sleek egret]

one of the harder questions is:
Convert an amount in one currency (src_ccy) to the equivalent amount in another
currency (dst_ccy) using a dictionary of foreign exchange prices as the guide.

There may not be a direct conversion price for the input currencies's. It may
be necessary to use an intermediary currency. example with the following prices:

prices = {'JPY/USD': 100, 'CNY/JPY': 20}

To convert from USD to CNY, you would need to convert twice from USD -> JPY -> CNY.
For the purposes of this question, there will never be more than one intermediary
nor will there ever be more than one viable conversion path.

[fringe sphinx]

But, small tech vs big tech is diff too.

[vapid jay]

Some GPT help:

def convert_currency(amount, src_ccy, dst_ccy, prices):
    if f"{src_ccy}/{dst_ccy}" in prices:
        return amount * prices[f"{src_ccy}/{dst_ccy}"]
    else:
        for key in prices:
            if f"{src_ccy}/{key.split('/')[1]}" in prices and f"{key.split('/')[1]}/{dst_ccy}" in prices:
                intermediate_amount = amount * prices[f"{src_ccy}/{key.split('/')[1]}"]
                converted_amount = intermediate_amount * prices[f"{key.split('/')[1]}/{dst_ccy}"]
                return converted_amount

[smoky quest]

new grads still get asked those though

[sleek egret]

nope, that would fail

[smoky quest]

that's not difficult to achieve

[near ocean]

Who asks hard leetcode questions

[vapid jay]

what's your leetcode profile?

[vapid jay]

to crush souls

[smoky quest]

lol not gonna dox myself.
Also not an entry level anymore

[sleek egret]

understand, this test is to determine if I'll even bother to read your resume

[pine sleet]

I'm not at my computer to try this but off the top of my head, doesn't seem too bad. My initial thought would be find the src currency to the left of the /, find destination to the right of the /

[near ocean]

I dont think its typical for leetcode hards to be asked in the average tech interview

[vapid jay]

how many leetcoe you guy solve

[sleek egret]

right, but it could be the reverse. and yeah, none of the questions are particularly difficult if 1) you know how to program and 2) you paid at least a little attention in class

[vapid jay]

i did like 5 lol. with some gpt help

[near ocean]

Not that you shouldnt prepare for them
I think some people here are obviously better than average and cant seem to place themselves into the shoes of the average dev

[buoyant seal]

i am very digilently preparing for most honest interviews: i never solve any leetcodes at all 😄

[sleek egret]

there's a question about base conversion and a composite/exception sorting, a stream filtering quesiton, etc...

[sleek egret]

gpt was wrong

[smoky quest]

that's not the point.
The point is one can get asked that quite a bit and thus should be prepared for it. It doesn't matter if it's average or not

More technical jobs may also tend to ask more technical questions

[vapid jay]

i got accepted

[pine sleet]

employers don't care about GPT, they want to see how you do

[fringe sphinx]

What’s the point then, if you’re using gpt? The whole point is to develop critical thinking, design and programming maturity. Looking up the answers doesn’t do that. The main benefit is from stewing on a problem for hours or days

[deft pelican]

I don't know what leetcode is. I did however enjoy a lot of project euler during university because I learned strange math! 🙂

[vapid jay]

just for a little help, like in real life. a hint

[near ocean]

People could get asked a bunch of different things, we dont have time to prepare for everything that could possibly be in some ego tripping interviewer's question pool

[smoky quest]

That would point at an area of improvement.
I would suggest:

• Pick up a book on DSA, like Introduction to Algorithms and read it and do the exercises
• Practice with codingame.com or leetcode

You should not have to memorize or fight hard or use chatgpt. Practice makes perfect

[sleek egret]

assuming you do well on the filter test, we'll review youru resume. assuming you get past that, we'll schedule an interview. part of the interview is having you write some simple code while I watch

[near ocean]

And i dont think the expectation of juniors/entry level to solve random hard leetcodes without help is reasonable

[smoky quest]

I don't ask hard questions myself, but I hardly see that as being an ego trip

[fringe sphinx]

Im not your dad, but obv I disapprove of that point of view

[sleek egret]

I agree, too many leetcode questions rely on knowing bits of number theory. which seems a bit odd to me.

[grand grove]

So how do you guys handle situations where you can eventually solve a coding interview problem but due to the time constraints and never seeing the pattern the question is testing for you can't solve it in the alloted time. I try to talk through what I think the approach should be but never seem to be able to connect with the devs asking the questions - they seem very cold in the process and less collaborative

[vapid jay]

hard! hard are hard! beginners don't solve hard.. no?

[near ocean]

Juniors arent beginners

[fringe sphinx]

That’s why I just say leetcode easy. After that, there’s plenty of other sites.

[vapid jay]

because talk is easy. code hard

[deft pelican]

In my experience (1 hour today) Chatgpt produces 20 lines of code crawling with hidden bugs. When you ask it if the code it produced has bugs, it answers yes, and points out some of them. How many times do you have to iterate chat gpt on the same code to remove all bugs that it put there by itself?

[sleek egret]

we pay our juniors over $100k because they're supposed to be able to solve "hard". if we didn't need that, we could just hire people in india or phillipines for 1/3 the price

[pine sleet]

quite the opposite IMO

[vapid jay]

a few iterations yes

[smoky quest]

Having to see the pattern points at: #career-advice message

[vapid jay]

junior solves hard leetcode? whoa

[grand grove]

Lol I am aware algo questions are hard to solve - I have many years of professional enterprise coding experience and projects drive business revenue

[smoky quest]

fresh grads don't have experience. But they ought to have DSA fresh on their mind

[sleek egret]

leetcode is a particular type of problem. most of which we don't face. real software development has different sorts of "hard" problems.

[sleek egret]

the interviewer is not there to collaborate. he's there to observe you and answer questions about what it is you're supposed to be doing.

[near ocean]

thats weird, is that how you're meant to work?

[grand grove]

Agreed, but for the big tech companies it really is a this is the minimal bar to pass and I think that leaves out some very talented candidates

[sleek egret]

I suggest that you approach it by asking for clarification rather than hints. find ways to limit the scope. find out what they don't care about (e.g. comments, some exceptional cases). don't ask questions like "is this the right approach?"

be clear about what you're thinking and why. if you're moving along a path that solves a different problem than they wanted you to, they'll then point that out

[smoky quest]

Companies aren't short on applicants who can solve them. They won't be missing out.
Each job ad receives thousands of applicants

[grand grove]

^Correct this is the approach I try to take and express what I think the solution should be in both a brute-force approach + optimal

[sleek egret]

so instead of "should I use iteration here?" questions should be more along the lines, "can I assume inputs are integers?"

[fringe sphinx]

Early stage interviews often have a lot of candidates being filtered. At this stage, they really don’t care about you: just how you compare against the pool.

[near ocean]

how early is their technical interview then, if im talking to real people is it not past "early"?

[deft pelican]

And then what? When you have something that chat gpt produced, and u think it works. But the name of the variables are super wonky. What do you do?

[vapid jay]

i change variable name

[grand grove]

Agreed here too - I try to clarify all assumptions explicit and inferred at the beginning before attempting to solve.

[sleek egret]

oh, and never say something like "I'm thinking about how to best optimize this" or "I'd have gotten further if wasn't trying to optimize". that is often perceived as you being the type of person that makes excuses

[deft pelican]

Well, to me, chat gpt seems to create more problems than it solves.

[fringe sphinx]

By the way, my experience with interviewing is that my ability to predict outcome sucks, and this is true with most companies. We can weed out the worst, but the rest is hard to figure out. The industry uses terribly unreliable measures, like dsa questions, that often have no bearing on success

[grand grove]

There is a limit to the skills required to read a person at that level. Devs aren't cog psych experts.

[sleek egret]

many people purposefully pose vague problems to see if the candidate asks for clarification. a surprising percentage do not.

[fringe sphinx]

But don’t hate the player, hate the game.

[sleek egret]

you don't have to be a psych expert to hold opinions about people.

[grand grove]

True but that opinion can't be used against either without any data beyond the way a question was asked

There are cultural and linguistic factors at play

[sleek egret]

general rule of thumb: don't make excuses for your failures during an interview. best to just keep trying different approaches until they tell you to stop.

[deft pelican]

Btw, you should probably try to get the interview on a sunny day. Or maybe rainy, I don't know which is best really ...

[near ocean]

the game only exists because people play it

[sleek egret]

if something doesn't work, just say "oh well, that didn't work... hmm... how about..." most interviewers like people that try a variety of approaches

[grand grove]

Yeah I been thinking about this more even from the hiring side

[sleek egret]

everyone wants a better/more efficient way to hire

[grand grove]

So that is why I like the take home projects

[sleek egret]

just accepting people's self assessment is not it

[smoky quest]

One way to look at it is that if there was something better, it would already be in use

[fringe sphinx]

Winning strategy is: hire fast fire fast

[sleek egret]

many people despise and hate that

[grand grove]

Its a more realistic way but of course adds to time to vet because you have to make sure the person didn't cheat and can explain the solution in depth

[sleek egret]

hiring someone costs money. more to the point, which one out of the 1000 applicants do you hire?

[grand grove]

Perhaps but in my experience in both Small to Mid tier tech firms and IT orgs that is not the case

[near ocean]

shuffle the cv pile and pick the first one, everyone else has bad luck and you dont need that

[sleek egret]

lol

[grand grove]

I totally get big tech's reasons for using the coding DSA live tests

[smoky quest]

I wouldn't subscribe to that in that way.
There is a cost on both side as the candidate had to quite their previous job and would now be without a job.
There is also a fine line between firing fast and giving them the support and opportunity to improve (and pip)

[sleek egret]

wasn't there an old scifi novel where lottos were run by aliens to find extraordinarily lucky people?

[smoky quest]

case of?

[fringe sphinx]

Yes, puppetmasters? Heinlein?

[sleek egret]

yeah, I think that's it

[gilded valley]

all of the very best developers can pass leetcode questions. some good ones might fail, but a false positive is far worse than a false negative (unless you're paying shit money, in which case you need to dig harder)

[sleek egret]

mediocre programmers are a dime a dozen. there are literally millions of them

[fringe sphinx]

I rarely get to interview ‘the best developers’

[grand grove]

Where if there was a better way to vet candidates they would do it, they like to use the copy paste approach so they try to emulate big tech and on job the demands of the work is nothing related to core dev but more integration work which requires less DSA

[gilded valley]

but are you aiming for good ones? if so, a leetcode style filter will keep all of the top 1%,and most of the top 25%

[smoky quest]

I see.
There might be a bit of that. However I do see questions being adapted to the expected level of skills as well

[grand grove]

Fair but I would like to see the data behind the false negative those who have the skill but not good at DSA live interview questions

[sleek egret]

you don't hire people for the 90% of the grunt work they do, you hire them for the 10% that's challenging and difficult.

because, honestly, if the 90% grunt work is challenging to them, you have a big problem

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, I do, that was tongue in cheek. I do fine, but in small tech, we tend to have to find the best of second tier resumes (great candidates nonetheless)

[sleek egret]

we do that too... but finding diamonds in the rough means filtering through a LOT of candidates. it's so tiring.

[gilded valley]

I think that's probably the most interesting place to be hiring. you can't just throw all the money in the world at the problem, so you need to come up with better tests not just harder ones

[sleek egret]

some people have plenty of money and can just throw money at it

[fringe sphinx]

I actually prioritize retainability as high as skills. Commute distance, goals, interests, etc.

[grand grove]

When I interview candidates, my focus is on problem solving skill and CS knowledge in the domain for the work. When I create requisitions for roles, my leadership grades me on how well I can hire, train, and get a dev working toward the specific problem. If its grunt work we typically offload that to overseas devs who are junior.

[smoky quest]

I do find better results when focusing on the non-monetary aspects (purpose, mastery, autonomy)

[fringe sphinx]

(We’re hybrid, but still: someone local is going to be far easier to integrate)

[deft pelican]

What is DSA?

[gilded valley]

of course - FAANG does it. Some finance companies try to do it - but middling companies have it harder

[sleek egret]

yeah, that's a pretty common pattern. we also off-loaded simpler stuff to cheaper devs at foreign outsource shops

[gilded valley]

anecdotally, it's just people too stubborn or misinformed to put in the not-that-much work to get up to scratch

[sturdy pilot]

Data structures and Algorithm

[sleek egret]

I swear, interviewing is such a drag. and after two or three dozen candidates they sort of all blur together.

[fringe sphinx]

DSA is one of the core topics of any computer science curriculum. In US universities, it’s often a freshman course.

[sleek egret]

think about that. we have to test people on intro level material. it's that bad.

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, that’s my hire fast point: I don’t need 36 to find 1 hirable… give me 5-10 who passed the screen.

[sleek egret]

it would be like when hiring doctors being happy that they could identify major organs (and a fair % could not)

[fringe sphinx]

Was it the secretary problem that discusses this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secretary_problem

[deft pelican]

I just didn't know the abbreviation. God I get sick of abbreviations. Some emails at work are 20% abbreviations 🤮

[sleek egret]

hah, so if you have 100 applicants, auto-reject the first 100/e = 37 applicants

[grand grove]

Your saying if your in the false negative band meaning you have the skills but don't shine on the format or test style of live coding DSA questions. It is on you as the candidate to learn DSA to meet the bar vs. questioning the bar and its use in the industry....totally fair but again my problem with this approach is DSA questions are just the surface of what makes a good dev in a company/team setting. I get some companies have individual contributor paths that just focus on the DSA side because they are core devs creating proprietary things not available in public/open-source.

[fringe sphinx]

“You’ve been rejected because of math.”

[deft pelican]

Nice, thanks for that link! 👌

[sleek egret]

math never lies, baby!

[gilded valley]

I'm not - and I don't think anyone is - saying that you hire on the basis of leetcode alone.

it's just something that proves developers can learn relatively basic things and can write+analyse ok code at the single-function level

[deft pelican]

Haven't you seen the 1 = 0 "proofs" 😝

[sleek egret]

if you can't write a simple function, how likely is it that you can navigate complex systems?

[grand grove]

Fair, I still opt toward the take home question approach and having the follow up interview post submission be a explain your code and approach, with a portion of did you consider XYZ. The candidates that approach that thoughtfully and can discuss pros/cons of approaches including BigO, readability, flexibility, comments etc.

[sleek egret]

discussing things only goes so far. some people can discuss without actually being able to write the code

[near ocean]

I think i'd rather relearn DSA and game the tech interview

[sleek egret]

it's why I now always do live coding sesions during interviews

[grand grove]

They do write it for their submission and the follow up serves as a way to confirm they didn't cheat

[sleek egret]

that doesn't confirm i t. they could have discussed how the cheat code works with whoever wrote it for them.

IMO, best is to have them try to write a new thing

[gilded valley]

I think for junior candidates, a significant proportion of them - maybe a majority - cheat on take homes.

I have friends who have literally gotten people jobs by doing the take homes for them

[grand grove]

Sure but any interviewer would probe using that question as a way to test CS knowledge via code examples snippets etc - it can be more collobrative vetting process

[sleek egret]

I've seen multiple identical submissios from folks at the same university

for us, it's a pre-test, to determine if I'll even look at your resume

[gilded valley]

if a competent friend helped them, they will have been coached through all likely questions. You open the door to so much more potential for bullshit

[sleek egret]

at our firm, we get 100's of resumes for a slot. everyone gets the take-home exam. those who score well get looked at and some of those get interviews.

spending 15 minutes reviewing every resume out of 400 means 100 hours... that's a lot of time

I don't think people who haven't done it really understand just how much of a time sink hiring is

[grand grove]

Fair point, but in that situation, you can't get coached for the full spectrum of CS knowledge your role requires. So in the prob part of the discussions, it will become clear they know some but not all things.

[gilded valley]

by take home, I'm interpreting it as a longer task - half a day to a day - not a 90m leetcodey test

[sleek egret]

ours has a 2 hour time limit out of respect for the candidate's time. most good scorers finish in half an hour to an hour or so.

and most of the questions do not even come close to leetcode difficulty

yet, a surprisingly large % still fail horribly.

[grand grove]

In your JDs do you guys have a minimum years of experience etc for the role

[fringe sphinx]

One of my worst hires nailed my in person coding questions. Turned out the recruiter was giving them the questions, after debriefing other candidates

[sleek egret]

not really

[fringe sphinx]

(I had a loop of 3 or 4 questions)

[gilded valley]

I'm more talking about more open ended things. e.g I had one which was:ingest this data to a database, create this SQL view, make it so that it could scale to terabytes of data

where the candidate is making architectural choices

[fringe sphinx]

Oh man, I could count on one hand the number of candidates who actually could design a db schema.

[sleek egret]

I'd rather ask more complex design questions during an interview so we can talk about the why's and wherefore's

[sleek egret]

"I'm an expert at SQL because I can do a join!" 🙂

[grand grove]

I would think the Prob part here was less than needed - like say you grilled them on approach and their WHYs to their decisions it becomes clear when someone can't explain in depth why something was done this way vs. another.

[waxen heath]

Guys how hard is usaco?

[fringe sphinx]

Lol, I always ask them to model a one to many and a many to many. Nearly all fail.

[sleek egret]

that's sad but not surprising

it's like they couldn't be bothered read a single book

[fringe sphinx]

I remember it well, I was so surprised at how well they did … it was so unusual… and I didn’t adjust my interview to dig deeper.

[gilded valley]

the idea is that the candidate makes the thing. hirer makes sure it's not dogshit, if so, you spend the interview discussing the choices made, alternatives, extensions etc

[sleek egret]

I get that. I just don't trust them.

[gilded valley]

neither would I because of the aforementioned cheating thing

[deft pelican]

What's that?

[grand grove]

I think an interview is a prove your ability type of exercise so any candidate that is able to cheat easily means the system for vetting is not that good. I totally get how live coding DSA questions at big tech save time and they have the funds to not care about false negatives but I am trying to express Small and Mid tiers shouldn't rely on that approach esp if their work is less core dev and more integration work.

Esp if you think about growth and turnover

[gilded valley]

I agree that the leetcode filter doesn't make too much sense unless you can just throw money at the problem and pay big-tech salaries

[sleek egret]

hah, if we used a leetcode difficulty filter, we wouldn't interview anyone

[rapid osprey]

anyone knows about the BCA degree program.. need to ask some ques abt it

[grand grove]

Have you guys ever interviewed at companies that know you have what they need but use the DSA as a way to lowball your offer?

Happened to me once with a big credit card company

[sleek egret]

I once interviewed at a bank... I was young and rude so told them the approach they were taking with their system wouldn't work. made me an offer but I took another offer. ...

a few years later, I was looking for a job again, and the recruiter described a job at a bank to re-engineer something. I told him, "get me an interview and I think I can get an offer"... so he did...

...I went in and it was the same manager. I could tell she remembered me. I just said, "so, didn't work, huh?" she laughed and said "nope. you want the job?"

the world is both larger and smaller than you think when you're a young'un.

[timber musk]

I work at a bank right now and I would be kissing corporate's feet if they redesigned their systems because they look like windows XP level systems

[sleek egret]

different banks place different levels of importance on technology

[grand grove]

Lol, I once had a call with a hedge fund that wanted to rebuild their "platform" which was essentially a cron job scheduler running ETLs and they needed some web scraping to collect data. I asked them to describe their current system and they weren't using any async or distributed compute and the guy who was supposed to vet me instead chose to use that time to defend his work and the platform

[sleek egret]

some view it as a cost to be minimized. others view it as a competive advantage. neither is correct and both are correct at the same time 🙂

[timber musk]

quite low honestly, for mine at least

[sleek egret]

heh, most systems are a hodge podge of jury rigged, duct taped pieces that barely work

but they do work. and that's enough most of the time (until it's not)

[grand grove]

Sure but if your hiring someone to redo your system don't defend what you have, or why else have a FTE role to rebuild/improve - it was essentially a these are my requirements but don't say my poor performing system is bad

[sleek egret]

I feel ya. but sometimes some people just get defensive <shrug>

I'd just laugh and say "our current system sucks... and that's why I'm lookng for someone to fix it!"

[grand grove]

Exactly, so alot of ego is involved on the interviewer side esp if they are devs who worked on the thing someone is getting hired for

[sleek egret]

oh yeah. some tech interviewers seem to just want to prove how smart they are at the expense of the candidate. which is super-counterproductive

few people get any training on how to interview. and few orgs coordinate what interviewers ask. nor even have a formal means of assessment.

[grand grove]

When I start my own consulting shop (if I ever do lol) that will be my focus for sustainable growth

[sleek egret]

proving how smart you are? 😋

[grand grove]

Lol no like making sure the interviewer's goals align with the recruitment goals and that time is not spent bashing potential employees

[sleek egret]

sounds like point-headed boss management stuff. blech.

just hire the best! how hard could it be?

[grand grove]

Hiring the best is the goal and having a fair framework to grade the "best"

[fringe sphinx]

My greatest compliment was, from a team I built was a mid engineer saying: ‘I’m not used to working in a place where everybody is competent.”

[gilded valley]

a lot of what there is is bizarre handed down from HR stuff - e.g asking about your company's "values"

which leads to nothing burger questions like "do you have an example of when you demonstrated excellence?

[sleek egret]

lol. useless.

[grand grove]

That is definitely a worthy achievement

[sleek egret]

hey man, that's a LOT harder than it sounds

[gilded valley]

impossible for every place I work at.

[grand grove]

I also like the model where multiple devs contribute or even compete for their solution to be incorporated into a codebase. Not a hiring thing but for teams with varying level of dev competence - it allows for those who want to do more in terms of effort to be rewarded vs. having devs focused on a single side of a codebase.

Adds to the KT and support allocation goals too

[gilded valley]

sounds interesting - as many places, the contention between collaboration and competition must be hard to get right

[grand grove]

Def a hard balancing act and it does shift a lot of the owness of picking the winner to more senior devs but they do code reviews anyways and its another metric to use for senior level promotions

[smoky quest]

that sounds like an unhealthy environment

[gilded valley]

I think competition has huge merits - at least assuming it's tied to remuneration - but so does collaboration

[fringe sphinx]

I've never done this (competition)... certainly not outside of testing two different theories / a-b testing. I do intentionally rotate to things they aren't familiar with, tho.

rotation / cross-training is big for a few reasons... first, I think it increases job satisfaction (people like learning). second, it improves quality and collaboration (fewer silos). and third, protects me/us from someone quitting. But it does come at a cost of reduced short-term efficiency. But, it's a long-term gain.

[sleek egret]

I use weekly code reviews to foster some mild friendly competition. each week a couple devs have to show off some of their code to everyone. advice is given, questions are asked. everyone wants to impress their collogues (or at least not be embarassed).

[grand grove]

Why if you build a ego free team, who is there to grow along with make impact

[waxen heath]

Idk what leetcofe is but I use a korean online judge and im ranked gold

[grand grove]

We do this with a small dev team of 5, where junior engineers on the team who are eagerly looking to level up and have a bigger impact use it as an opportunity to shine. It does add to the time to deliver if every engineer is trying to solve the same problem but we don't do this for easy tasks its more for areas that require innovation

[waxen heath]

And gold is like a silver rated usaco question level so idk what that is in leetcode

[smoky quest]

I don't even link it to egos.
I link it to incentives and how people would feel they can do their best. Having multiple people building the same thing demonstrate a lack of trust, disincentivize an environment of helping and caring and would make feel people unsafe and unable to be themselves.

That said, I already filter for people wanting to have an impact and growing. So it hasn't been a problem for me.

[grand grove]

You can choose to see it as a lack of trust or as any contest to see who has the best solution - it can drive positive effort too. Nothing in the competition nature is lack of caring, because those who don't get the accepted answer get to learn why one solution was selected over another.

So it grows the whole team

[smoky quest]

I still wouldn't see benefits over not doing that

[grand grove]

I have been in some of these code reviews where its just two people discussing a part of the puzzle the rest don't know about or are involved in so they tune out

[grand grove]

One direct benefit is collaborative growth during the review phase where senior devs teach junior devs and competition exists in all facets of life so if its good enough to bring forward the best why not use it as a tool in dev teams

[smoky quest]

Senior devs ought to teach and review juniors regardless of the competition or collaboration. So there isn't a difference there.

I disagree with the statement that given some competition exist in some other facet of life, thus it's good to bring it inside a company.
Competition is about maximizing the outcome for a given entity. If two engineers are competing, that will be different from two companies competing since the benefit of a specific engineer does not necessarily align with the benefit of the company.
The best companies I have seen are the ones where they all work as one team and comfortable being honest with each other, not when they have incentives for politics and fighting with each others

[grand grove]

"ought to" - I am not trying to debate the merits but I will leave it saying in my experience there is a lot of self preservation in small to mid teir companies where they don't teach and some even advance juniors they don't see as direct threats to their job security

[smoky quest]

yep. And creating a safe environment with high performing teams is already difficult enough without adding explicit competition between employees.

[gilded valley]

you can align the incentives of the individual and the company. if you think you can't, then that's a pretty extreme anti-capitalist view

[smoky quest]

how would you go about it?
How does it even relate to capitalism?

[grand grove]

Teams even in sports have players within that compete so not catching your point here

[smoky quest]

seeing everyone as a threat is not a great working environment and not an environment where people flourish

[gilded valley]

It relates to capitalism in that it is the agency problem

The way I would solve it is: the engineers who contribute the most (where contributions can be outcompeted) get paid the most

[smoky quest]

how do you define "contribute the most"? The ones who do the most flashy things?

[grand grove]

Lets say you chose to see it as an opportunity to grow and shine vs. a "threat"

[gilded valley]

In this specific setup, it's the senior engineers deciding which PRs to merge who would make that decision

[smoky quest]

As an engineer, helping my coworker will only make it more difficult for me in the future. Thus I should not help them, and maybe even give wrong information and make sure they cannot contribute to my code

[grand grove]

So if your proactively harming your competition, that is an HR issue not something the team has to handle. Now lets say you hired good people who enjoy doing good work their incentive is not to harm their peers.

[smoky quest]

what is their incentive to do it correctly?
How do you aligns them to agree on the same thing?

[gilded valley]

(assuming their = the junior engineer)

Their incentive to do it correctly is because doing it correctly is the only way to beat the other guy's.

[smoky quest]

sounds like a skill issue on the coworker part.
They should have been good enough to not have to ask such question

But let's put wrong information aside. One could always say "I don't know"

[smoky quest]

I actually meant the senior engineers deciding what is best. Or would there be only one?

[gilded valley]

In this specific scenario, it's just people in charge. AIUI they're not competing

[grand grove]

I am not getting your point, are you trying to express that competition has no place in growth and that it is a survival game where one dies and another lives? It doesn't need to be so extreme, this is friendly growth based competition.

[gilded valley]

they are the judges of what is best

[gilded valley]

their incentive to be good judges is the same incentive as anyone else's incentive

I think there are probably too many practical issues to make this kind of competition and bonus driven style of team structure work for something as hard-to-measure as engineering. But working in finance, it really does seem to push people to go the extra mile when performance is truly measurable, I'd much much rather be working in a set up where better work actually definitely leads to better pay

[grand grove]

Engineering today at big tech is tied to metrics right so in most orgs these metrics are usually time to deliverables or number of bugs or release cycles features etc

[gilded valley]

IMV the problem is that all of the metrics are gameable bullshit. The advantage of finance or sales is that the metric you're aiming at is literally profit and loss, or revenue, which isn't really gameable

[smoky quest]

My main point is that it creates a worse environment overall.
Having competitions changes the incentives from working together and pulling as one team . It limits the cohesion of the team, the trust and the ability to fail.

There is already some implicit competition to some level with, for instance, some competition for projects and tasks that demonstrate growth so they can be promoted. And that's a pain.
And routinely across the industry, you do see people changing job because they have the skills but weren't able to get promoted for some reason.

And to circle back on the sport analogy, you won't find 11 strikers on a soccer team but 11 people cooperating together to win a match.

[gilded valley]

I imagine if you were working somewhere where the only goal was to improve performance or something, you might be able to do this in tech

[smoky quest]

better work should lead to better pay regardless.
There is enough work for everyone, at least in normal companies

[grand grove]

I don't agree with your view on the change of incentives - and as you say there is inherent competition built in bc at end of the day employees compete for the total pool of funds at a company

If a dev feels bad they can't compete so they leave, the next company will be the same

[gilded valley]

better work should lead to better pay regardless.
really? At the end of the year, the head of your team will hand out 200k to @smoky quest because he went god-mode on XYZ project, and 15k to @grand grove because he took 6 weeks to set up an email server?

I've never seen tech roles where discretionary bonuses are that variable and that common

[smoky quest]

I have seen things like that

[fringe sphinx]

fwiw, I'm on recursive_errors side on this debate. I do agree that motivation is the single most important thing management needs to worry about, but it's an incredibly hard dance. And sometimes (often?) it's not $$ that drives it: it also happens when people like where they work and the people they work with.

[smoky quest]

To be clear, it's common for companies to either stack rank employees or to have ratings of under/at/over performing and adjusting bonus. Sometimes it's even more discretionary

[gilded valley]

I think compeition is desirable, but I think for the most part it's probably impractical to try in a software engineering team. But if I was CTO at $BIG_TECH_COMPANY, I'd probably look to experiment around the idea

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, even in small tech where we're not ranking, we still identify the "must retain" employees.

[gilded valley]

stack rankings are common, I think Google does reverse stack rankings. But I've never heard of bonuses coming remotely close to what they look like in finance or sales roles

[smoky quest]

That's just a leap I wouldn't do.
The places where I have done and seen the best work is where everyone can cooperate, lean on each other and freely exchange ideas. They are all on the same boat, aiming for the same direction and it feels good to do it as a group

[gilded valley]

by coming close - I mean purely the disparity between different members within a team

[fringe sphinx]

In engineering, it tends to be correlated with rank. As you move up, 40-50-60% of comp easily is non-salary.

[smoky quest]

It's typically a mix of salary/cash bonus/equity award

[gilded valley]

that's fine - but the point is can your direct peer reasonably take home 2x what you do based on the discretionary bonus pool

From the people I know at big tech, this isn't remotely typical

[smoky quest]

that's not the norm in tech.

But it can happen (and more) in special occasions like acquisitions for instance

[fringe sphinx]

At the staff engineering level? No. Or at least, I've never seen it. ... oh, yah, I'm agreeing with you

[gilded valley]

that very much is the norm in finance or sales, where you can just completely own some direct PnL. It's a world I'd much rather work in, but one that doesn't really exist for tech

[fringe sphinx]

Start your own business.

[gilded valley]

(and can't really exist, it only really works when there's some objective measure of the value you bring)

[smoky quest]

that would pretty much conflict with the current DEI trends.

But I can see where you are coming from

[grand grove]

Maybe is worth scoping what we are saying is healthy vs. unhealthy competition. Healty in my pov, is a team that has a shared goal and a degree of variable skill between members. So having friendly competitions like leaderboards of whose solution gets accepted allows for measurable ways to determine who is a teamplayer and who is willing to go extra mile who is willing to advocate for a particular solution and their reasons. All this fosters team work bc its transparent.

[gilded valley]

that really is the closest thing

[dreamy shadow]

How much do you think the " junior operations analyst team" gets paid?

[fringe sphinx]

Everything changes when you're spending your money. (I know first hand, it's a wild ride but fulfilling)

[fringe sphinx]

Doesn't that have the salary on the post?

[smoky quest]

I mean, as a manager I don't need it to know who goes the extra mile.
I already see it every day with who steps up, who goes the extra mile, etc.

As a leader, one has to be very careful about the message they send, especially around what they value. For instance if I want some metric to go up, I need to show that I care about it, not just say it. That means asking about the metric at every meeting to show that I care so that people start looking at it.
So introducing a leaderboard or something shows that it is something the leader cares about and value. And thus is what the engineers will optimize for. I have seen such thing destroy a whole company before.

[dreamy shadow]

Salary is for a "Senior data scientist" position.

[smoky quest]

this is a prompt engineer. Doesn't need a ms or a high pay

[dreamy shadow]

Should have used that as a title then. Instead of throwing more mud at data scientist roles.

[grand grove]

So PMs typically drive the metrics the leadership cares about right and they share that in standups with the whole team. The dev team lead or manager's use of competition as a tool to foster growth doesn't mean that person values something different - the values for a good developer is the standard the whole team strives toward and having systems that allow for visibility of those devs and encourages people to try and grow beyond their current level is the entire intent

I would like to understand your pov on the toxicity of it - I get it is nuanced in its application

Also am not trying to troll so if we going in circles we can agree to disagree

[void prawn]

im looking for work

[true harness]

have you considered applying to jobs?

[smoky quest]

tbh, I still not clear on the benefits of it comparing to not doing competition.
None of the benefits you mention are exclusive to teams with competitions. Building a product is a team sport, it's not an individual activity like sales where you own a prospect. People have different strength and weaknesses, and capitalizing on it with a collaborative environment can be a great opportunity for learning, impact, growth and having fun along the way.
I will also argue that any team with high trust and collaboration will always outperform teams composed of competing 10x engineers.

In terms of toxicity, it comes down to the incentives:

• If you win, it doesn't mean I win
• For me to win, you must not win
  From there, all sorts of unwanted behaviors emerge.

Note also that engineering managers do care about many more things than the PM metrics, which are more focused on the product and what to build.
There is a large surface to care about in terms of execution and how things happen.

[celest kite]

Apply to Steve Jobs

[candid latch]

I wanna do CYS

[grand grove]

People have different strength and weaknesses, and capitalizing on it with a collaborative environment can be a great opportunity for learning, impact, growth and having fun along the way.

Agreed - the way I view healthy competition in this context is the team isn't trying to outshine or hinder their teammates. It is more of a way to promote extra effort and reward visibly, even if it is not a direct monetary gain but a reputational one regarding visibility.

If you win, it doesn't mean I win

It doesn't have to be this extreme zero-sum level of you vs. me - let's say each engineer is working on the same problem, and the goal is for the most efficient solution. They absolutely can collaborate, but we ask that each submission be unique. Ultimately, they share why one was selected, and another wasn't on the merit of the code. This only applies to tasks that require innovation and not a routine ticket/feature.

I agree on the large surface part, so it comes down to the approach vs. debating if it should not be a tool in the toolset.

[unreal turtle]

its not an internship though

[deft herald]

What's the difference?

[unreal turtle]

apprenticeship is more for training, internship is more for work experience

[deft herald]

Hmm. I've never seen a resume with an apprenticeship so I'm gonna say it's not a big issue if you don't have one

[true harness]

i think they aren't that common in the US

[celest kite]

In the US it depends on the field. It's more for blue collar workers in the US like electricians, HVAC, welding, etc

[true harness]

yeah; i assumed swe

[gritty rivet]

Internships are strictly for students. Apprenticeships are for everyone else. When it comes to IT/CS they're certainly less common then internships, but they're not rare by any means

[vapid jay]

Start your own country too

[vapid jay]

leaderboards. teamplayer. go extra mile. advocate. it's a nice selection of words. which proof do you have, if any, about how people really feel about these things?

[smoky quest]

yeah, it's all about context and trade off.

They absolutely can collaborate, but we ask that each submission be unique. Ultimately, they share why one was selected, and another wasn't on the merit of the code. This only applies to tasks that require innovation and not a routine ticket/feature.

Why not just having pair on the problem, debate, investigate potential solutions and letting them come back with a solution?
Sometimes people would explore the solution space in parallel to save time (ex: exploring different databases), but that's in the context of a collaborative approach.

[grand grove]

All of these things are measurable and often are part of review/feedback processes

[grand grove]

Again nothing prevents collobration in the model but we can leave this matter here - thanks for engaging

[vapid jay]

teamplayer is measurable? how, please? go extra mile measure? advocate measure? how would you measure these?

[smoky quest]

You don't have a "teamplayer" measure. Instead, you focus on what it means to be a team player and how it translates in the performance of the person, team, product or company:

• Are there frictions when working with that person?
• Are people complaining about or praising that person?
• How many times had the manager or lead to step in to make sure a project was done end to end?
• How frequently do they enable other people?
• What are their contributions to the tedious/glue/non-flashy work?
  ...

[vapid jay]

Are there frictions when working with that person?

You ask each of the team members "do you have frictions with other team member A? do you have frictions with other team member B?". Who is the judge of whether there are "frictions" or not? The Manager? This to me is nebulous..?

Are people complaining about or praising that person?

But is people complaining about something a good measure? Imagine Jack is so good he wrote an excellent algorithm and James can't follow it and complains "yeah, I am not sure that was useful.. I thought it was cryptic" whereas in reality it was good and James just didn't get it or dislikes Jack or wants to appear better than Jack to grab the one-and-only promotion at stake or is retaliation for when Jack did not approve their idea or anything else of the millions of wonderful things politics brings to work? Very flaky "measurement" and laden with distortions..

How many times had the manager or lead to step in to make sure a project was done end to end?

Step in? What do you mean by "step in" here? It's very vague.

How frequently do they enable other people?

What does "enabling some other person" mean? How does James enable Jack so that Jack is now... enabled?

What are their contributions to the tedious/glue/non-flashy work?

This can't possibly be a measure of "being a team player", are you saying that it is? Somebody might be the opposite of a team player and go do those things so they work alone for a while as nobody else wants to do those... ? This is loosely coupled with the quality you want to measure if tied at all?

I am terrified by these very shaky measurements which become an assessment of whether somebody is a team player or not. Petrified by them. "Did X enable Y"? Shudder... Is real work after Uni so................................................ in the hands of somebody's buzzword interpretation? If so.. I wanna call my mum and ask her if we can still pull out of Uni and get some of our money back.

What would be funny is "oh, student-A.. after writing this now I know you are not a Team Player". That would be hilarious. Be more of a Team Player.

[gilded valley]

you seem to be complaining about someone making qualitative judgements in general?

you seem to hold a lot of very strong opinions. can I ask how old you are? have you ever worked in either a tech or non tech role?

[vapid jay]

Never worked. I sometimes am an A student. Not recently.

[vapid jay]

You said you were not interested in talking to me. You changed your mind recently?

[molten prairie]

I am a python dev, I want people to build their ideas into real

[vapid jay]

I don't complain. This person said "I can measure Team Player". I said "oh, you can? how?" They said "Enable others". I got scared by the fact that they appeared to have confidence in those things being measurable.

[gilded valley]

probably best to experience the real world before deciding against something. I'd suggest getting a job working in McDonald's etc

[vapid jay]

Py has float.

[vapid jay]

Does getting a job at McDonald's help me interpret how people measure being a Team Player for the purposes of advancing one's career by being a Team Player?

[gilded valley]

you obviously complained. ridiculous to say otherwise

[smoky quest]

You ask each of the team members "do you have frictions with other team member A? do you have frictions with other team member B?". Who is the judge of whether there are "frictions" or not? The Manager? This to me is nebulous..?

Have you ever worked with an asshole? Someone difficult to work with?
These things will come up with people reaching out to the manager to complain, in the 360 reviews, or the person itself may wonder how come people don't reach out to them or work around them.

Step in? What do you mean by "step in" here? It's very vague.

There is a concept of ownership.
The more junior the engineer, the smaller and well defined the task. But as the person grows, they will start handling larger and more ambiguous tasks. That ambiguity can be treacherous when the engineer does not keep up with that change in scope.
A classic example is the "it works on my machine, so the rest is not my problem". Another one is when the engineer just focus on the tiny area they know but miss some important part that will break when used by the customer or handed over to someone else

What does "enabling some other person" mean? How does James enable Jack so that Jack is now... enabled?

You could use the word "unblocking" or "making things better for someone".
Sometimes, people have different skill set and levels. And thus helping someone would count as enabling them

This can't possibly be a measure of "being a team player", are you saying that it is? Somebody might be the opposite of a team player and go do those things so they work alone for a while as nobody else wants to do those... ? This is loosely coupled with the quality you want to measure if tied at all?

If I keep all the cool and flashy tasks for myself and only leave the boring and annoying tasks to you, would you consider me a great team mate?

[gilded valley]

it means you'll realise everything recursive error said is normal and necessary

[vapid jay]

Are you saying "measuring" those things is easy? How? The Manager measures? Then it's a "who's best buddies with the Manager" isn't it?

[smoky quest]

I believe you are getting that type of reaction because your messages are rather phrased in a dramatic manner

[molten prairie]

what doy ou mean sir?

[gilded valley]

it's very obvious - even in a place like dominos who is a team player vs who is a lazy prick vs who is angling for store manager at all costs

[vapid jay]

And how do you measure that and who does? The store manager?

[gilded valley]

go work a real job and you'll find out for yourself

[vapid jay]

You are speaking to me in a way I don't like.

[smoky quest]

not much different from what I just described above

[gilded valley]

that's such a shame because my goal here waa to become your bestie.

ah well - there are plenty of other melodramatic teenagers who have got the world figured out, I'm sure I can find one of them to go to the park with me

[silver roost]

For those interested, I have created a remote jobs site for developers:

https://www.workfromhut.com

[smoky quest]

Hi!
Ads aren't accepted on this server

[vapid jay]

You still have made no substantive contribution to the topic rather than asking me about me only to use that "against me". "Go work at McDonald's". "Melodramatic teenager".

Do you think that those things (Team Player, enabler of others, etc.) are (easily?) measured? If so, how?

You only said "it's obvious who goes for a promotion and who is lazy".

Ok.... as measured by.... ?

[gilded valley]

as measured by the qualitative judgement of competent managers

[gilded valley]

you described yourself as terrified, you seemed to reject the idea that someone can be a team player.

you seem to have a worldview completely out of line with consensus - and despite that no experience or evidence to justify the worldview.

[vapid jay]

Is consensus that managers are good at detecting Team Players or not based on their hunch?

[smoky quest]

managers don't act based on their hunch

[gilded valley]

it is not a hunch.

consensus is that team players exist, it is good to be one, it is good to work with them, and people can tell who they are.

good and average managers foster them, bad managers don't.

[visual hound]

Hello, can someone give me advise? I dont have IT education. I have only 2 month experience in python dev and 2 like tester, how i can start working somewhere remote (cos i will in Tivat soon), its real to get a job as an assistant in my case? And if it is, how can i do that?

[smoky quest]

It is going to be quite difficult to find a remote job without experience or skills.
Note also that jobs are paid based on your location and not the company's location.

So one avenue may be to look at jobs in your future location and looking at you would need to make yourself more noticeable to these employers

[visual hound]

In Chernogoria zero IT jobs(

[visual hound]

i can create telegram bots or test something or do scraping and sentiment analysis, but thats not enough(((

[smoky quest]

it's a market with supply and demand.
It may help to make sure you can supply skills that are in demand for your market

[flint pagoda]

Hi! I'm going to search for an entry level job in AI and I would like to build a portfolio. My question is how to show such a portfolio? GitHub repos simply? And is there anything to keep in mind when it comes to portfolios besides of the technical aspect of the projects? I'm looking for some know-how

[peak halo]

A portfolio won't matter nearly as much as more formal credentials, but I would make sure the readme makes it easy to understand what the repo is about, and how to fully reproduce any experiments in the repo. Don't, for example, have any hard-coded file paths without telling readers what's located at that path and how they could acquire the same files.

If you have notebooks, make sure those are clean and that and that they've been executed linearly from top to bottom with each cell executed exactly once.

[brave matrix]

Very nice website! What stack did you use?

[olive forge]

Hi everyone, I am looking for a Senior Python developer, can I publish here that Job position?

[true harness]

no

[buoyant seal]

Channel description (P.S. same true for whole server. Whole server is not for recruitment)

[olive forge]

Thank you very much

[hearty island]

damnit, rejected from jpm chase

[silver roost]

Next JS + Typescript + vercel + mongo db 🙂

[rain geode]

Hi, I'm 18 and thinking about becoming a software developer. Is it possible to get a job without a college degree?

[gritty rivet]

It's possible, but almost never advisable. It's almost certainly possible and worthwhile for you to get a degree first.

[gritty rivet]

Check the pinned messages, there is a long one by "UltimateChaos | ᘡᘏᗢ" all about this topic

[rain geode]

thank you

[pine sleet]

If you are able to you should not pass up a CS degree

[rain geode]

University is ridiculously expensive so I was exploring alternatives

[undone lantern]

I love japan

[pine sleet]

There are many programs to help with the expenses

[true harness]

what country? in the US there are many opportunities to lower or eliminate costs

[fringe sphinx]

It is expensive and it is a privilege not everyone has for various reasons, but there are a few routes. One option is taking courses at a local community college, while working a day job. It takes commitment, but you can get pretty far this way.

[rain geode]

I'm literally broke🥲

[true harness]

what country? in the US there are many opportunities to lower or eliminate costs

[rain geode]

I'm in India

[pine sleet]

I am sure India has programs for that as well

[rain geode]

The thing is I don't have a family or any guardian so i have to do everything on my own. I could get into a cheap university but then the quality of education is horrible there

[vapid jay]

How can I get experience in coding to ace coding interviews ? Would also like to be a working student but all companies in my City want to have a lot of skills.

[fringe sphinx]

Tell us about your background and/or share you resume?

[vapid jay]

So basically I just study business analytics and want to become a software engineer/developer.

I am now about 20 y/o

[fringe sphinx]

Are you in college?

[vapid jay]

Yes, sir

[gilded valley]

in what country?

[vapid jay]

Germany.

Bro just asked me out like the FBI

[gilded valley]

you didn't give enough context in your initial question for people to give meaningful feedback.

if you're not in the US or UK, I don't have anything to suggest

[vapid jay]

Okay thanks. I was joking.

[gritty rivet]

A cheap degree is generally better than no degree. Beyond that you may get more relevant advice from people in India... If there are people on LinkedIn who are doing the work you want to do without a degree, those will be the best people to ask

[gritty rivet]

You can get the skills you need by studying them (including self-study) or you can find jobs that demand the skills you have... If you're looking for one weird trick, there isn't one

[sleek egret]

yar

[vapid jay]

F.e. I know pretty much the java basics and have some experience with it. What should be my next step ? A whole project, did by myself ?

[rain geode]

Okay! Thanks 👍

[gritty rivet]

Yes, I think you want at least one project on your CV that demonstrates the skills you need for the jobs you want. When you have zero formal experience and a non-relevant degree, projects are pretty valuable

[sleek egret]

your next steps should be to learn another language, learn beyond the basics, gain some experience on moderately complex projects (things that take at least a few weeks to a few months to write), learn how to work in teams, learn more about the process, learn how to structure systems, learn about basic tech, given your background, learn more about statistics, probability, systems modelling, simulations, optimization, etc.

then you you can go on to things that are a bit more advanced/specialized

[vapid jay]

I have two statistics courses at uni. Im thinking about learning python or c/c#/c++ next. for business analytics is python better. but I want to move into tech. I hate these economics jobs.

[sleek egret]

that's a great start

the language you use doesn't really matter. it matters only a little bit more than what calculator you like

[pseudo bone]

Hello everyone , i need an advice . Did you ever have a colleague who made jokes at your expense frequent enough that it made you uncomfortable ? If so how did you remedy the situation or confront him?

[vapid jay]

Okay thanks. What Project do you think should I start ?

[sleek egret]

tell him to stop acting like a child

[sleek egret]

that's like you asking me what you should eat

just pick something that interests you and build it

[gilded valley]

politely ask them to stop. if awkward, do it over MS teams. if they don't stop, email your boss, if it still doesn't stop forward HR the email chain

[gritty rivet]

Some people will never change and it's easier to just ignore and avoid them if it's just one individual. But you shouldn't hesitate to express your discomfort directly to that person ("I don't think that's funny."), and consider talking to your manager if it's persistent and severe

[sleek egret]

if it's persistent and severe, it's HR worthy behavior. creating a hostile work environment is a fireable offense at most firms

[fringe sphinx]

I agree with other answers. I have a negative view of HR for most stuff, but this is one where I've seen HR step in and make things right. I recall two different incidents where HR stepped in: one where a female indian engineer felt belittled by a male american engineer... he felt terrible -and- corrected his behavior after being made aware or called out on it (by HR). Another incident was where one engineer felt like his voice wasn't being heard: the team I was on had a very argumentative manager and while I fit right in, it was easy to ignore the quieter voices who also had things of value to say.

[gilded valley]

I do think it's probably worth both trying to politely do something yourself, and going to your manager first.

Both going straight to your manager and going straight to HR come with more risks than the alternatives. Exception is if it's really bad and your manager obviously should have noticed already (or possibly if they've noticed but ignored it)

[sleek egret]

sure, first just talk to the guy

[fringe sphinx]

To be clear: I wasn't advocating a specific order of events. Just saying that HR is useful for these types of issues, if you can't resolve it otherwise.

[gilded valley]

yeah - 100% agreed then. Anecdotally, HR people are friendly and if it's you vs another employee (rather than you vs the company), they will normally do the right thing

[sleek egret]

HR weenies live for this sort of "conflict resolution" shit

they've literally taken classes on it

[fringe sphinx]

oh man. so that's what happened in my second example. the entire team got called into a "conflict resolution" seminar.

[sleek egret]

lol

hopefully, just having that happen makes the two miscreants embarrassed enough to stop their bad behavior

[modest bluff]

anyone have experience passing technical interviews. Or have any recommendations of trying to become a junior dev?

[smoky quest]

A CS degree will be the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation

[gritty rivet]

Like anything else, there's no substitute for practice. Grind LeetCode, do mock interviews, do real interviews

As for the HR discussion I find it helpful to remember that their primary function in these situations is to protecyllt the company from lawsuits. Whether that makes them your friend or your enemy depends on context. If a coworker is genuinely harassing you, their interests may align with yours

It's tricky when its one person versus another. When a whole bunch of people make similar complaints about the same manager, HR can do wonderful things to neutralize the problem.

[fringe sphinx]

Other answers are good. Tell us about your background and we might give more targeted advice. Perhaps share your resume (redacted).

[teal bay]

what carrie descusion are they

[alpine tulip]

Hey! I'm in my mid 20s and in tech marketing. Being in a tech company has opened me up to all the roles available, but I don't have a computing degree and I'm still learning about what each role entailes. I definitely want to get into a tech career so I'm starting by learning Python and Azure/other MS products on MS Learn. Does anyone have advice on career paths that I'm not too late for that also pay well, please?

[dense mesa]

If you've done marketing then data analyst roles should be reasonable

[gritty rivet]

Mid 20s? Career-wise that might be too late for professional athletes and classical musicians but that's about it. A lot really depends on what you enjoy, what you want and how bad you want it. Exploring and learning new skills is never a waste of time. As you learn skills that interest you, keep looking at the job market to see what other skills might complement these and in time you'll have a clear goal of what kind of niche you want to aim for

Marketing + Python makes me think you might like to learn SQL and go for a data analyst sort of role

[smoky quest]

hi!
This is indeed the wrong place for it as this channel is about career discussions

[buoyant seal]

Mid 20s is still very young age to enter university and get CS degree. (I finished uni at 26 years old 🙈)
Recommending to take it, if u want middle difficulty road of career into IT industry. It takes effort just above average to make your career with going through uni.

Without uni, path to IT is very challenging, involves a lot of luck and dedication. And some exceptional level of efforts.

Be a friend to yourself, choose middle difficulty road instead of very hard one 😉

P.s. we can say also that any specialist path road is still open to you. Question to you what are your strengths and what u like 🙂 while 20 years old is late for musics and kind of late a bit for sport careers may be too... Everything else is certainly still a fair play

[tender basalt]

Hello, I would like to take step in Python developer but as a freelance instead of working in a company 9-5, I want advises/tips from you guys. Cause I tried well known platforms for freelancing but I got no clients, tried fiverr, up work, freelancers but nothing. How could I get clients any help please ?

[fringe sphinx]

Can you share your experience and education?

[alpine tulip]

Thank you to everyone who’s replied, I’ve already been to uni but did a completely unrelated degree 😅

[fringe sphinx]

If you're in tech marketing, have you considered pre-sales (sales engineering)? More customer-facing, much more technical, and pays a lot better.

[hollow swallow]

What's like the best way to start learning python and what things to focus more on that would help you in a practical scenario?

[fading apex]

Hello, Is it too late to get into python developer, ML and data analysis world at age 42. I have MSc in mechanical engineering and want to shift to tech

[true harness]

no

[tender basalt]

who me ?

[alpine tulip]

I have considered this, I’m not 100% sure on how to get into this - any advice would be greatly appreciated. I work from home so I don’t get to ask around much, it’s nice to talk to people like you whilst I try to figure things out

[gritty rivet]

Welcome to the reality of entry-level freelancers. It's competitive like that. People who want real money apply for real jobs. You can charge less, you can network harder, you can build a more impressive portfolio but the chances of making a decent living this way without professional experience and connections is near-zero.

[gritty rivet]

Look for those job listings. If you resume matches, apply. If not, address the gaps.

You can also look for people doing what you think you might want to do on LinkedIn and see how they got there, reach out for advice, etc.

[tender basalt]

I heard about people just working from the internet as freelancer and they making 7 figure, or like 10 000$ per month

[buoyant seal]

Everything is possible, but probably depends on a country location (people get paid depending on which country they have work permits 😉 )

And certainly this sum is reserved for later much years of career

[tender basalt]

but i speak about working from the internet not depending on countries

[buoyant seal]

That is holding only partial truth. It still matters where u pay taxes and have work permits.

Than closer u a to late career stages they easier u can overcome problem of it, but that requires certain exceptional level of work and pretty much possible at later years of career if ever.

People have much much easier time to reach this level of salaries faster if they just have USA work permit or they work on UAE or smh similar (hehe, but taxes or cost of living will cut significant amount from it instead)

[fringe sphinx]

In my opinion, this is largely a myth spread by youtubers. Sure, some people have passion + skill + ability to market themselves... but the first step is skill (or hustle).

[tender basalt]

do u do freelancing

[fringe sphinx]

I've been an independent consultant several times over the past few decades. But, I prefer to work with a team.

[tender basalt]

so freelancer ?

[fringe sphinx]

I don't use that term, but I don't think there's a difference between independent consultant and freelancer.

[tender basalt]

in which platform fiverr or upwork ?

[fringe sphinx]

Neither, I get my business the old fashioned way.

[tender basalt]

mouth to mouth ?

[fringe sphinx]

Uh, yes, by talking to people.

[modest bluff]

I’m currently in a full stack bootcamp which has 1 month left. And I have been studying python and grinding edabit(may need to switch to leetcode) for about a month.

[gritty rivet]

I have experience on Upwork from when I was in a totally different field (as a sociologist/researcher/writer/editor). I had several repeat clients who gave me great reviews on the platform and it was a nice side-hustle but I don't think I could have ever made more then $10k in a year, nevermind a month.

Now that I am a professional Python developer I have attempted to dable on Upwork again but couldn't land a single client as a developer. I was bidding very low, but the competition is just too much.

If you search through the history in the channel you will find at least one or two people who make a living as Python devs on Upwork. They are highly skilled experts at what they do and you're unlikely to compete with them without professional experience.

[vapid jay]

Im only 14 i want to keep learning python but i don't know if it'd help me in the future with any good paying jobs what do i do and how do i find an audience to start earning from now

[tender basalt]

so how to start freelancing ? as a java dev or anything

[near ocean]

chances are you're not going to be able to earn money at 14 with python
if you need pocket change go work as a waiter, cashier, etc
if you dont need pocket change, keep your grades up and get into university for computer science

[long stratus]

Hello, everybody! I am 1-year student and I am just starting my path in python. I would like to ask, what is more preferable rn for Python developer: doing back-end or ML. This is 2 path between which I am struggling to pick the right one

[gritty rivet]

Career wise, focus on getting in to the best university you can. If you need money, get a normal job. Keep exploring and practicing whatever interests you but don't high school kids rarely make money writing Python

[gritty rivet]

What exactly are you choosing? Do you have to pick a concentration in school? If they're not forcing you to, don't decide, keep exploring, you have time to do both

[gritty rivet]

You've already done the right things. You've proven what I'm telling you: it's not a very realistic path.

[tender basalt]

some ppl i know in real life, they making living just from freelancing, no 9 to 5

[long stratus]

From 2 year in my university there will be many paths, and 2 of them attract me a lot. 1 - software engineering and project management, 2 - Data engineering and AI. So I do not know, which one is still in demand? From my point of view, I would like to pick both of them

[near ocean]

Did you ask them for advice?

[tender basalt]

they don't give me

[near ocean]

Why is that?

[tender basalt]

no one is giving his secrets, they like to keep for themselves

[near ocean]

maybe there arent any secrets and they just struggled like the rest

[gritty rivet]

How do their profiles and portfolios compare to yours? You can see them as well as their potential clients can.

[gritty rivet]

I would lean towards #1 because it's more generic. You can easily learn data engineering and AI if you understand the principles of software engineering. There's time to specialize later.

You will be fine either way, what you learn isn't as important as learning it well.

[deft herald]

a what now?

[twilit yoke]

What quant are you

[vapid jay]

Ok, you say "it's not a hunch" but... "they can tell who they are". How, if not based on a hunch? "They can tell" is devoid of any substance unless you expand on it, do you agree? Are you being purposefully vague?

[smoky quest]

Hi!
It's not really a channel for shitposting

[gilded valley]

it is just absolutely clear cut that people can for the most part tell who is a team player vs who is not - even when playing video games you can tell - this is such a bizarre thing for you to contest, it makes it seem like you've never done anything as a team before

[summer roost]

I'm jumping into this discussion late, so pardon me if this should be obvious, but: are you trying to argue that no one is a team player? Or that some people are team players but it's impossible to tell who? Or that it's not impossible to tell who, but difficult? Or something else entirely?

[gilded valley]

here is the context which started the conversation

[vapid jay]

crazy how people are so differently aged grouped here

god knows if I am talking to an 35 yr old or 13 yr old

[gilded valley]

imp it's useful context, but regulars can't really repeat it every conversation. For reference, I'm 24 and in my second permanent role

[full siren]

Does it make sense to learn ML on your own through courses or just wait for the university until ML is taught or some university courses?

[vapid jay]

yea, I would also be weirded out if I had to repeat I am 13 and have done very little coding every time I joined a convo lmao

[full siren]

im covering ML algorithms through youtube right now and I've seen that there's kind of a bootcamp(more like a course, tho not really bootcamp) at my university and that made me doubt whether I'm wasting my time right now and if I should do something else

[vapid jay]

dont join the bootcamp or whatever if it doesnt help you in the future for either higher education or jobs i think? if it does, then is the bootcamp going to be basic level ml algo only which are easily available on yt

[full siren]

Yeah I agree. I study CSE at university and have seen on the announcements that there'll be artificial intelligence courses which you can participate by passing an exam and interview so on. Participants share what they did on LinkedIn and that made me doubt whether I'm wasting my time by learning ML online although I can also get those courses at university

[harsh river]

if you're already going to college then i would prepare for ML by studying up on your math, i'm assuming those camps are pretty quick so i'd just do them if you want to

[full siren]

If i'm going to learn the same things, that wouldn't be really useful except refreshing my knowledge, no?

[full siren]

i don't have any problem with maths

and i've just finished my freshman year at university

[vapid jay]

yea, if the bootcamp is legit, it will look better on your portfolio then ml algo learned from yt

[harsh river]

sure, but the credits you get from your college course will be far more useful than a random bootcamp

[full siren]

so would it be waste of time to learn ml from yt? Though, I don't only learn on YouTube, but also get some certificates in this field from some companies

[full siren]

yeah, I've talked with some students that took ML lecture and also found the lecture notes and they were all theoric. Apart from that, I also want to learn the implemention to build something

[vapid jay]

i mean adding more variables will just complicate stuff, for example- is the course being running for a long time in your uni, whats your future palns,etc but generally it will be a waste if the bootcamp/course will teach the same stuff yt ml algo tutorials are teaching.

[harsh river]

then maybe go for a SWE degree where it's more applied than CS

[full siren]

I see, thanks for your helps guys 🙏

[hallow lily]

anyone ever recieved garden leave pay? if so, i'd be really curious to know exactly what company, the terms and amount, that role, and current role.(obviously for what you feel comfortable sharing)

[vapid jay]

I am arguing that the message which purports to offer measures of being a team player offered unclear guidance as to how to proceed with the measurements. Example: how do you ask about frictions when you are not part of every discussion? Whom do you believe when somebody reports a friction and based on what? etc. etc.

Also, but as a minor point compared to the other request for clarification, "team player" is supposed to be a selfless trait (I guess?) yet as soon as you measure it and demonstrate that correlates to reward... it becomes something one could pursue for nothing else other than self advancement. One could be the most selfish "team player" and go fish for the quarterly episode of collaboration to add to their quarterly self brag. This is to say that not only is it difficult to measure these things but the act of measuring them has effects and it's non-trivial (not as simple as it is purported to be) to configure measurements, incentives and team dynamics. I can already see it in team formation for University assignments.

The lightness with which the topic was treated seemed to allude to a simplicity which I can see is the opposite of what one needs: a more nuanced characterisation of the issue. It is damn hard, it will be gamed and those who take the responsibility to arbiter these things should have tact and depth which goes beyond those bullet points and far beyond the cry "doesn't everybody know? of course everybody does.. and you're a child if you don't know that it is so". Why is it so again? "Because I said so". In practice a lot of successful people have dark traits on display and were not set back by not being "team players", no matter how much I might like a world in which everybody is a Team Player so I have all the world helping me out.

What kind?

[gilded valley]

team player is supposed to be a selfless trait

Says who?

you seem to be utterly detached from the real world yet still determined to hold very strong views about it

[vapid jay]

I said "I guess?" to that statement because it sounded very dubious to me too. You are quoting it partially and adding your own doubt to it when I myself was unsure about that.

[vapid jay]

The very strong view is: please offer guidelines to measure that if somebody's career depends on it that are stronger than "everybody knows if they are not detached from the real world".

[gilded valley]

OK why are you guessing at this thing no one suggested

[gilded valley]

recursive error broke down a list of specific examples which terrified you despite being fairly easy judgements to make

[vapid jay]

Because the definition is tricky for me to comprehend. Which is why I asked "define it and show how one would measure it". I am guessing because we are talking about an elusive idea here which is purported to be common knowledge. Is it?

[vapid jay]

They did and I am thankful for the list but I thought the list was very lacking in the ways I said it was lacking. Hard to measure. Very subjective. Unclear. Etc. It may just be me..

[gilded valley]

I don't need to define it, dictionaries do a pretty reasonable job

[digital fjord]

Social matters such as team dynamics will not ever really have objective metric by which they can judged. It depends more on subjective feeling for the mood and state of the team and how well that aligns with reality.

[vapid jay]

Also @gilded valley you said you have 2 jobs under your belt already.. are you considered a Team Player at work? You say everybody knows when one is... are you and what did you do to deserve that career-helping badge?

[vapid jay]

Ok, this is a definition. Thank you. And how does one measure this?

[near ocean]

they probably dont get into pointless arguments about the definitions of simple words

[digital fjord]

You will not find something like profit = revenue - cost for whether someone is a team player

[near ocean]

if my teammates did that with this frequency i would not consider them team players

[vapid jay]

But you would not have any say in their career as you are not their Manager, correct? Would you go to their Manager and say "look, I want to denounce X for not being a Team Player"?

[digital fjord]

a great team player in team A may work poorly in team B, and vice versa.

[vapid jay]

This is what I am 100% seeing in group assignment at Uni. It's a lottery.

[near ocean]

of course i would have a say, would my manager ignore me if i went to them and said X doesnt play nice and is being difficult to work with?

[gilded valley]

I didn't say that I am a team player - I aspire to being one.

but even when I worked in Domino's it was clear who was a team player and who did the bare minimum - the person who would help out new starters, do the things no one else wanted to do, give advice etc

[digital fjord]

it is not a lottery if you know to pick only people you know you work well with - which you learn by socialising.

[vapid jay]

I love Domino's pizza by the way. As they say: thanks for your service. I mean it.

[gilded valley]

(I did the bare minimum)

[vapid jay]

I now see why you recommended working at McDonald's. I rejected it at first but if it's Domino's with free pizza.. I am down.

Anyway @gilded valley I am gonna give up as you offered (still) no substantive example of how you'd measure that and I understand you aren't going to. We put this to the side.

[gilded valley]

the list recursive error gave was clear and unambiguous. your opposition is purely based on the fact that it is a qualitative judgement

[vapid jay]

Also hard to collect. Very hard.

I have found things you said here pointless but I had the tact not to tell you so. Now that you mention this...

I generally believe your advice to be shallow and precipitous. Which I rank lower than pointless. But I wasn't being personal because you weren't being so. Now that you did it..

[gilded valley]

I don't think it's at all hard for anyone with real world experience to see that for most cases those judgements aren't hard to make.

is life even worth living if a random teenager on Discord doesn't like you?

[vapid jay]

I like them alright. It's the advice..

But enough of that.

[pastel thunder]

my working shift is from 9 30 am to 7 pm
Officially!! is it even legal?
Anyways i work for 2-3 hours max

[gilded valley]

it depends on your country. I'm sure you can Google this

[near ocean]

why would it not be legal

[pastel thunder]

At some places i see daily limit is 9 hours,
at some places i see 48 hour is the limit, weekly.
But i do generally see 9/9: 30 to 6 be more common in my country(india), It feel the timing are longer compared to what my friend have

[near ocean]

you dont work at those places though, do you? you work at a place that has 9:30-19:00 hours

[true harness]

offering constructive criticism can be a way to demonstrate being a team player

[fringe sphinx]

I always ask myself (and other interviewers) the airport question: is the interviewee someone you could stand being stuck at an airport with? This is a subjective: do you like this person? Or at least, would you mind working with them? Most people easily pass this but there’s always a few who don’t.

It’s related to team player stuff but it’s somewhat the inverse: would this person be a negative personality on the team

For what it’s worth, this is really hard to gauge from an interview alone. You have to be really bad to fail this.

[analog sun]

This seems to be related soft skills, and why they are important to practice and cultivate.

They aren't something that can be directly measured like "Jimmy has a communication score of 8/10, but his emotional intelligence is at 4/10". What you can try to do is implement measurable items that are correlated to different aspects of the business and job role, but these are often difficult to do right.

Ultimately, knowing how to work with different people is a skill that can be learned but is often hard to pinpoint exact details. I had a whole course for development that covered effective communication, negotiating, leadership skills, handling conflict, etc. Even in these structured courses there comes a point where you cannot quantitatively or programmatically answer each scenario when dealing with others

[forest stump]

I need to run a live / over the internet interactive coding session, is there any free tools for this?

[gilded valley]

this isn't related to careers in any way

[forest stump]

Thanks

Has anyone a favourite tool for live coding sessions? that you've used in your interviews

[delicate bane]

"you can always teach technical skills. it is much harder to teach someone to be a decent human being."
-some hiring manager, probably

[near ocean]

We use replit

[summer roost]

how do you ask about frictions when you are not part of every discussion? Whom do you believe when somebody reports a friction and based on what?
I think you're right that this can be difficult to assess in any one instance, but it's pretty easy to spot patterns of behavior. If two people on the team don't work well together, the manager might not be able to figure out which of them is more to blame, but if there's someone on the team who every team member struggles to work with, that becomes a lot more obvious. You're of course right that there's some bias involved in trying to measure these things, but I don't think it's nearly as difficult as you make it out to be. You'll spend about as much time with your coworkers as you do with your family and friends, so there's plenty of interactions between coworkers to observe, at least some of which the manager will be privy to and able to extrapolate from.

One could be the most selfish "team player" and go fish for the quarterly episode of collaboration to add to their quarterly self brag.
That's true, but it doesn't matter at all! It's totally irrelevant whether someone considers the needs of other team members out of altruism or out of selfishness. The thing we want to incentivize is the behavior (helping others get work done, doing unenjoyable work without complaint, etc). The manager doesn't need to figure out who is doing the right things for the right reasons and who is doing them for the wrong reasons. It's a good thing that measuring this changes people's behavior. The reason for measuring this isn't to measure people's intrinsic goodness, it's to reward behaviors that benefit the team as a whole. If measuring that causes people to change their behavior to be more beneficial to the team, that's great!

[eternal summit]

What are great projects to make for my resume? I'm trying to start applying to internshipsmfor 2024 summer

[true harness]

software engineering is a large field

it's not really about specific projects. look at the requirements for internships you want, then make projects demonstrating you meet those requirements

[buoyant seal]

At certain point it does not even matter what kind of project u do, as long as u do smth that is interesting to you and it solves real world problems. Just making cleanly coded project with a lot of code is already great
(For my level challenges I just plan to make complex Minecraft mods 😅 )

Projects benefit more if they use technologies used by your specialization/job role though
Also bonus to resume if many devs participated in project

[gritty rivet]

We use coderpad, seems fine

[spark cobalt]

VSCode live share

[feral steppe]

I have a technical interview next week for entry level Software Engineer mainly focused on Python. I already know python well but im not sure what to expect in the interview, its 90 minutes long.

If you guys have tips or ideas on what to focus on or how to prepare I would be grateful

[forest stump]

I imagine it will feature some DS&A

[feral steppe]

so for example "Name a sorting algorithm, give the runtime complexity, explain the algo design then implement it" ?

[forest stump]

Usually it will be a leetcode type question, and you're expected to find the solution then improve it.

[fringe sphinx]

You can’t know everything: be comfortable at not knowing the answer and work through a problem. Be cool when you get stuck and stay calm.

[fringe sphinx]

My usual answer for prep is: leetcode easy or similar are good practice. Don’t grind and don’t stress it. Read a bit of current trends and current topics in tech. Read about the company and prepare a few basic questions. Read about current and upcoming releases: maybe know what’s new in 3.11, 3.12 for instance. Whatever skill is prominent on your resume: be prepared to explain it. Don’t be the guy who lists PyTorch and then can’t answer a single questio .

[tough charm]

is a degree apprenticeship better than doing a bachelors?

[deft herald]

Sounds pretty good if that's an option for you

Don't think we have that in the US

[solemn zephyr]

What is that? Where did you find this?

[deft herald]

I just googled it and came up with some results from the UK. Sounds like a program where you work full time and earn a degree. The government pays for 2/3 of the degree and the employer pays the rest + a (somewhat small) salary

That was based on my comprehension of the one brief article i read

[tough charm]

yeah, i just want to keep my options open and was wondering if anyone did this

[deft herald]

Well i'm sure people do it...otherwise it wouldn't be a thing

[gilded valley]

it depends on the company and the degree in question. but in general they do seem like a pretty good deal.

[solemn zephyr]

A small salary? Hmm. I'm thinking wouldn't you end up making more money by just getting a job in the field you like, and then pay for your own tuition? For example, coursera is offering online degrees from top universities, at kind of affordable prices. I guess you would have to compare it, both ways.

[deft herald]

I guess you would have to compare it, both ways
Yes, definitely would recommend doing the shopping. However, it may be difficult to land a job in the industry without already having a degree or being enrolled in this apprenticeship program

[tough charm]

wont i be able to get the same experience with internships in uni?

[solemn zephyr]

I hope its not difficult 🙂 I'm planning on doing just that, get a job without any degree, and then (maybe) over time get one (if it will help). I heard from several long term professionals in the field the same thing - you can land a good job without a degree, as long as your are good at it. And i also know one person who changed from the same profession i am in, became a developer at 39 years old, started with zero knowledge, landed his first job in 1 year without any degree. Working remotely now, doing quite well. So these testimonials point me towards this: degree not important for now. That's why i'm somewhat contradicted by your statement.

[peak halo]

Some people are able to get jobs as a developer without a degree, but it's much more difficult, and some companies categorically will not consider applicants without one.

and if you're a young person without any professional experience, I'd wager that it is easier and more cost effective to just get the degree.

[buoyant seal]

the point of degree is kind of in getting this first job easier and having more solid educational background to flare well in it / more rapidly growing in knowledge and experience when having already solid foundation and graduate-level-matured soft skills

[peak halo]

though you said "changed from the same profession i am in", so I gather you have experience in some technical field as is.

[buoyant seal]

who changed from the same profession i am in,
good point. degree can matter much much less if u are already experienced in smth techy enough

[solemn zephyr]

I see, not my case definitely. I already have a profession and 10 years experience in that. Not really looking to spend 4 more years right now, just want to get employed ASAP and go from there.

[solemn zephyr]

Nope, his previous profession had absolutely zero to do with development or tech for that matter.

[solemn zephyr]

Again, nope.

[peak halo]

I hope it works out for you, but I would brace for the possibility that you won't be able to make the jump without some additional training.

[solemn zephyr]

I'm ready for the possibility that companies will ask for 'papers', thats relatively easy honestly. Only cost is the money.

[peak halo]

papers?

[solemn zephyr]

Certificates, i thought degrees is what we are talking about

As for the ability to perform tasks, i'm working on that as we speak from other resources 🙂

We'll see what happens 😉

[peak halo]

if it doesn't, and you already have a bachelors in something else, an underrated option is to get a postbach.

[solemn zephyr]

Best of luck to everyone 🙏 I'm focusing on getting some work experience, even if its freelancing + a good portfolio so that i have something to show.

[peak halo]

if you don't have prior industry experience, you won't be able to get jobs freelancing.

[solemn zephyr]

yeah, i know thats an option.

[solemn zephyr]

how so? What about upwork and the likes? people won't accept your application?

[peak halo]

if you don't have enough experience to secure an entry level job in development where you would be the most junior person on a team of developers, then there won't be anyone willing to pay you to do a certain thing for them on your own.

[solemn zephyr]

Interesting talk! Glad we had it 🙂 Learned alot.

So it seems in the end, the hardest part is landing your first job.

[vapid jay]

python good for backend?

[solemn zephyr]

After that, degree or not, doors are open.

I guess we know the old saying "Be so good, they can't ignore you" 😂

But yeah, seeing i do have Masters degree at an engineering university, i would definitely be able to fast track my way through computer science degree in no-time 🙂 Just do some difference exams, and voila. Finish in half the time.

[peak halo]

what is your masters in? and what do you do currently?

[solemn zephyr]

Maritime Transportation.

The education system in my country allows you to skip some educational content in your next university, computer science is bundled with engineering 🙂

[gritty rivet]

Not really. It does get a lot easier with your first job but people with degrees always have some degree of advantage and wider options available to them at all career stages over those who don't, regardless of career stage

[solemn zephyr]

Fair enough, it makes sense since they invested time/money/effort.

Either way, i'm not concerned, i know i'll make it sooner or later 🙂

[hybrid lark]

Hi everyone I need help with my code

Where can I ask for te help I am new here

[smoky quest]

#❓｜how-to-get-help is a good place to start

[fringe sphinx]

I’m a long term professional in the field. There are always exceptions, but software engineering is a degree field. A degree is not just a piece of paper, there’s valuable learning and growing that happens. In this job climate, where even college grads are having a hard time landing their first job, you’re choosing a hard path and your options will be very limited. Do what you will, but don’t think a degree is pointless or useless.

[fringe sphinx]

My advice for career changers is to find a way to leverage your experience: some way to use what you know. It’s a very tough climate right now for entry positions.

[smoky quest]

These aren't the same people who will earn high figures and have a high flying career.
A CS degree is the path of least resistance and with the most opportunities and compensation

[buoyant seal]

btw, i also heard about such cases when people succesfully managed transitions in similar conditions, but be aware, that those people were always kind of technical / having technical sufficient inclination to make it happen (like having soft skills to seek tech solutions, having patience to dig into tech problems until they are solved)

My mother tries to make this transition in 48 years old and i don't believe she has any chance at all. She is completely non tech person, not capable to dig for solution at all (She just gets spoon feeded in her online courses). Once she will encounter any variation of a task requirements different from what she has in courses, she is going to be completely not knowing what to do next. She can't reinstall OS, she can't even register her own email, very very far from being advanced user, quite the opposite 😐

[fringe sphinx]

Oh this is something we don’t talk about much: that with the rapid rise in cs degree seekers, many of which don’t end up in SWE positions. I don’t have data for this, just anecdotal, but there are people for which this is just not the field. But, there are many types of jobs in tech.

[fringe sphinx]

Funny enough, my mother was a career SWE. (I’m older so just imagine when she started)

[buoyant seal]

My country and university gathered statistics, how many CS garduates actually work by their specialty. Number varies from 30 to 70%, smth like around 50% for my uni

[fringe sphinx]

Oh, that’s interesting.

[buoyant seal]

in general though, my faculty had the highest rate of droputs. So many people just did not survive to graduation

i remember i made at first year, course work with Graphs Data Structure 5 times 😄 once for me, and earned like 4 thousand roubles + hotdog by making to others
They received good grades, but almost all got expelled in some next years after accumulating more study debts

[fringe sphinx]

Lol, yah, once you start paying others in hot dogs, I think you know you are done 🙂

[buoyant seal]

It was a good triple hot dog, very yummy one from a brand Hot Dog Master. With special sausages by special order. This one course work i made for my friend at that time ^_^

[buoyant seal]

interesting.

[crystal flume]

Could I please get feedback on my résumé?

[true harness]

the top is missing?

[gritty rivet]

Keeping in mind that resume norms vary widely but country I'll say a few things.

I would recommend a simpler and more traditional format without the sidebar. Check the pinned messages for a good example. I would definitely get rid of the blue circles that look like a fake attempt to quantify your skill level.

Use bullet points, not paragraphs. This is a wall of text that nobody is going to read. Don't simply describe what your project does or what you did in a role. Look up the STAR method. Eliminate unneccary and repetitive phrases like "In this project, I had to..."

[crystal flume]

Thanks

[true harness]

you probably want to search for a typical software development resume and use that. the format you've chosen has a few things going against it, e.g., the weird skill circles; these don't provide any additional information

[native narwhal]

Hey guys hope u are all fine 🙂

I work in Marketing and with my colegue we were looking at LinkedIn Jobs for 2 hour straight
tech jobs for web-dev also database jobs and ML/AI jobs
all levels: Entry level/Associate/Mid-Senior level
Applicants per job are like 300/400/500/800

how come 500 applicants per software dev job?
Can anyone shed some light onto this? Please 🙂

[true harness]

i'm not really sure what you're asking. are you asking why so many people are applying?

[native narwhal]

yep

[true harness]

many people want to do that job

[native narwhal]

if the supply of tech qualified people is so high how come jobs arent filled instantly

[true harness]

you don't need to be qualified to apply

[native narwhal]

that was funny to me

[true harness]

i mean, if companies really wanted to get only the qualified applicants, they would do what US schools do and charge 70 dollars per application

[native narwhal]

what chance do a newcommer have in tech if 500 applicants per job my god this is crazy

[true harness]

i wouldn't trust these numbers anyway. there's a good chance linkedin is fudging the numbers somewhat, or that a large portion are bots or simply unqualified

[native narwhal]

not even in marketing so many applicants

[balmy spade]

I agree, the source of the numbers is biased. The more you think you need Linkedin's help the more services they stand to market toward you.

There are a large number of applicants, but there's always been. You face the same challenge as each and every one of them. Having a resume that sells you into an interview and then having the interview skills to land the job.

[native narwhal]

I'm looking to shift (slowly) from marketing into coding and have been learning bit by bit, heard an advice "on YouTube" that software testing with Playwright/Cypress is much easier to start with as new in tech and more jobs in testing
I have a job and its all right but not great so i don't know if I should focus and learn some more advanced tech stack or go with testing 🙂

[gritty rivet]

You have to approach your job search accordingly. https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-software-engineers/

[slow flame]

what is point of having a job

[gritty rivet]

It's not an either/or thing. Testing is an important skill and a basic part of SWE. It is true that many less experienced people get their break in testing and you can make that part of your strategy without necessarily putting yourself completely in that box

[true harness]

earn money

[gritty rivet]

Making money. Building useful stuff is cool too, but not a requirement

[fringe sphinx]

Moving out of parents basement?

[slow flame]

@true harness but all the jobs which i get or got
i just dont fit in

[fringe sphinx]

Then maybe it’s the wrong job. Or you need to change. Or you’ve been unlucky. Or you need more experience.

[slow flame]

i mean, i really start thinkijng if i dont belong like working with people

im too emotional

[fringe sphinx]

If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you (just generally) and how many jobs have you had? And, what type of jobs?

[native narwhal]

reading

[slow flame]

@fringe sphinx well just two and almost 30

[fringe sphinx]

Software engineering?

[gritty rivet]

You think your emotions will be less of a problem if you're broke?

[slow flame]

@fringe sphinx embedded
@gritty rivet i mean, i wont be broke, ill just manage pass, which im ok with

[fringe sphinx]

Hmm. Company ‘cultures’ really vary, perhaps you just need to give it another shot at a different type of company?

Or look for a mostly remote position

[gritty rivet]

Manage pass?

[true harness]

would be good to identify specific causes; whether it's related to one company or to embedded or software dev in general

[slow flame]

@gritty rivet i mean the wealth-thing since I m in europe, I know that in usa people simply die without a job

[fringe sphinx]

Are you generally antisocial/introvert or just with work?

[slow flame]

im akward and very emotional

like now i worry about my team

but then they have this toxic manager who is into impossible tasks

and i let them down because i was too tired to simply go on

[gritty rivet]

Heheh, I see. Well maybe if your current job is really that emotionally taxing and you can afford a break financially, you could give not working a try. I wouldn't choose that route lightly but if you weigh the alternatives and make that choice, it's all good

[gritty rivet]

Have you tried a job where the management isn't toxic?

[fringe sphinx]

I’m somewhat an optimist: I think there’s always a right job for people, and a right manager: sometimes the right job makes the difference

[slow flame]

i have tried big corporation, but it feels like people are robots, it made me depressed and quit

smaller is better because of "close-bond", but then at my current job they have this toxic manager, i mean manager of my manager

[fringe sphinx]

I’ve never worked in embedded, but I wonder to what extent that field might be somewhat boring to some people.

[slow flame]

@fringe sphinx but its more about people and connection with people at work

[gritty rivet]

You've had two jobs. Each had different problems. You'vee seen that the work environment makes a difference. Can you imagine a third kind of place where you'd be happier then either of those two? Is it that you want a small company with better management? If so, I think you can find that.

[slow flame]

@gritty rivet but is there? i mean lately i was thinking if im the problem

[fringe sphinx]

I dunno, perhaps you just need the right place? Again, I’m an optimist.

I think we’ve all worked somewhere we hated.

[slow flame]

but i think im too emotional for this since i am like "team needs to help each other, hold hands etc,"

[gritty rivet]

Do you have any reason to think that way? If you're observing a pattern in your own behavior that you believe is contributing to your own unhappiness, you can change that, whatever it is.

[slow flame]

but then you get NPCs or you have good team, but manager is some psycho guy who is like "I need to see them suffer at every step"

[gritty rivet]

Emotions can be difficult to control, but they mostly result from your thoughts, which you do have a lot of ability to control

[slow flame]

yea but at some point like at this moment i was working around 16 hours a day for 4 months, its difficult

[gritty rivet]

If your manager is the problem, that's also a very solvable problem

[gritty rivet]

Also very solvable, don't do that

[fringe sphinx]

Ugh, yah, ‘crunch mode’ hours is a terrible practice

[true harness]

crunch time but all the time 😔

[slow flame]

but the manager wants this, its fucked up
he gives this impossible tasks like "build a car" and he add "you have 8 houts for this"

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, so why would you blame yourself for that? That’s just bad managing.

[slow flame]

well but because of that i was so tired that i fucked up

i let my team down

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, but we know that’s what happens during crunch mode. I never demand it because I would get poor quality fi I did

What I’m saying is: what you’re describing is a bad work environment, and it’s honorable and a good sign that you care about yourself, your work and your team to be upset at yourself… but it’s still managements job to create the environment.

[slow flame]

but the problem is that the team is small, they have greate idea, but the manager of my manager is fucked up

its literally as if manager is trying to do everything to burn everyone there and simply say that "you see i told you that you wouldnt make it"

and i want to quit, but then i dont want to leave these poepl e behind

[fringe sphinx]

That’s honorable of you, but if you’re miserable, you already know what you need to do, right?

Perhaps they’re perfectly happy: take care of yourself

[slow flame]

yea fix what i have messed up, so they manage to push the project forward after that

[fringe sphinx]

At least prepare a resume and start looking, that takes little effort

That’s my suggestion, at least

[slow flame]

i mean after i quit, i need kinda long break at least 3 months

[true harness]

take PTO!

[slow flame]

it was too much to work 16/7 every week

[fringe sphinx]

What country? Is that even legal?

[slow flame]

no, its the manager of manager hides this shit somehow

[true harness]

and i thought 996 was excessive

[fringe sphinx]

Yah, let them reap what they sowed. Overtime leads to quality disasters.

[slow flame]

@fringe sphinx yea, thats what i have fucked up. I made this spagetti code since I was coding and coding and i havent notice and start forgeting etc,

[fringe sphinx]

Oh so crunch mode with no code reviews? That’s like setting your house on fire while you’re building it

[slow flame]

yea the code review was after a year

i mean 4 months since the manager of manager came and said to start working hardere

[fringe sphinx]

Ok, I’m going to bed. You know this is ridiculous and you should just leave. If half of what you’ve said is true: it’s not right, it’s not normal, and worry about your mental health (and talk to a professional if you need to)

[slow flame]

thats what im doing now since i took days off

[split citrus]

Is a Quality Assurance internship good if I’m looking to get into SWE full time?

[gritty rivet]

Good compared to what?

[robust island]

Any form of work experience is better than nothing

[smoky quest]

It's better than nothing, but you should expect a lot of people to look down on it and possibly push you towards QA jobs rather than swe

[split citrus]

Will I get siloed because of it?

[split citrus]

Electrical engineering… I have 2 options

[smoky quest]

It's like a cost function where there will be more friction if you come across as a QA rather than a swe

[gilded valley]

you just don't need to mention that it's a QA internship on your resume - then you just need to learn how to frame it well in interviews

[viscid ginkgo]

hi

guys anyone know what all we need to study for becoming a AI specialist

[solemn zephyr]

Thank you very much for your advice! I appreciate your direct approach and help!

[solemn zephyr]

Thank you very much! I'm sure i'll make it in the field and be a smashing hit 🙂

[solemn zephyr]

I'm good at problem solving too 😉

[buoyant seal]

Hopefully, u a good at solving tech problems too 😊

[solemn zephyr]

Yep, been doing that alot already 🙂

[fringe sphinx]

I think QA is a great starting point, and a good place to learn the field from a diff perspective. As an internship, I wouldn’t hesitate. I’d consider it a very appropriate internship for someone aiming for SWE. If you were asking about an entry position I’d say: it’s better than nothing but you’ll have to work hard to break out of QA into SWE; once you’re in QA, it’s often been a lie that it’s a stepping stone to SWE. But, I do know (and work with) engineers whose first job was in QA.

[honest stratus]

hello hwo much i should take for this program in python (he want code):
Reliability: The bot should run continuously without any problems.

Data Collection: The bot should be able to collect the following data:

Auction details:
Auction number and name
Auction start date
Auction end date
Product Details for Each Auction:
Product number and name
Product description
starting price
final price
Number of raises
end date
Photos (saved locally on disk)
Output: All collected data should be recorded in an orderly manner in an Excel sheet. The photos should be saved in a designated folder with a reference in the excel sheet.

thanks 🙂

[analog sun]

(the fiverr link gets zapped @gritty rivet )

[gritty rivet]

After all that I wrote... Ung

[gritty rivet]

Basically, go on Fiverr and check your competition.

[near ocean]

As long as its automated QA, right? I doubt anyone would like manual QA, theres pretty much no development going on
Also the one thing that sticks out with QA people i've talked to is how hard it is to break into dev jobs

[fringe sphinx]

For an internship, I wouldn't be so selective... even manual testing is probably good experience for a short internship. Agree that it can be hard to go from QA to dev, but in my experience, it's usually because the person didn't put the work (degree, practice, projects, etc) in to begin with, and expected there to be a pathway.

[jaunty sundial]

Making my linkedin banner a piece of abstract art I made using pygame: good idea or bad?

[true harness]

i've never considered a linkedin banner

[gritty rivet]

Probably nobody cares. But if you think the pygame project itself demonstrates relevant skills to the point that you want to highlight it in your portfolio, then maybe it's not a bad idea

[jaunty sundial]

Good point

[sleek egret]

yar

[viscid ginkgo]

im looking to ML, NLP, RL

[gritty rivet]

Security support for Python 2.7 ended over three years ago.

[fringe turtle]

does CS and CE have equal opportunities in market? Also can CE work as a software engineer like CS graduate?

[sleek egret]

they are essentially equivalent for the vast majority of software development jobs

[naive slate]

would that be a correct interpretation to take that as a "dude please don't"

[gritty rivet]

Yes

[fringe turtle]

so it wouldnt matter alot if i entered cs or ce?

[sleek egret]

that is correct

[fringe turtle]

thanks

[gritty rivet]

I don't even know what CE stands for or what country you're in, but the title of a degree program only tells you so much. You need to research the specific programs you are considering to make an informed decision. What courses do they include at whatever specific university you are considering? What are graduates doing and is that what you want to be doing? (Check LinkedIn)

[fringe turtle]

computer engineering

[sleek egret]

computer engineering. there's also SE or software engineering.

CE tends to focus more on the electronics and architecture than CS or SE. but not always

[naive slate]

you have my thanks

[crude kelp]

Will AI take coders job?

[naive slate]

whatever you take, half/more of the results will probably be from self teaching on the side
(at least for me it was)

[naive slate]

to be determined

[fringe turtle]

yes i heard self learning is important

[fringe sphinx]

Adding to existing answers: CE came from a hybrid of CS and EE, and embedded is a natural career path (but not only). Similarly, many universities offer specialized CS subtracks, like data science which is a blend of CS and stats. As others have said, look at the course catalog/graduation requirements for each school and major: that'll really show you what the difference is. In most of these programs, I'd bet the freshman year is largely the same (perhaps one or two course differences).